The Lost Light Logbook 1 - The Road Less Traveled
by Whispers of the Ghosts
Summary: In the days following the Autobot/Decepticon Civil War, Rodimus Prime assembles a motley crew aboard the Lost Light and sets out to save Cybertron from a prophesied doom. However, with ghosts from the past awakening, dark forces lurking in the shadows, and a sparkling's nightmare in the closet, their greatest challenge may be surviving the first orn. (MTMTE/G1 rewrite, story 1/?)
1. Prologue - What's Her Name?

**The Lost Light Logbook 1: The Road Less Traveled**

**By Andromeda Medrexia/Whispers of the Ghosts**

SUMMARY: After six centuries of conflict, the great Cybertronian Civil War has come to its close. Optimus Prime and Megatron are dead, the Decepticons and Autobots listless and confused, and the displaced NAILS are returning en masse. Unfortunately, with the eleventh Prime's death came the prophecy of Cybertron's end at the hands of a malevolent force. Their only hope—the long lost Knights of Cybertron. In a last ditch effort to save their race and home, Rodimus Prime leads a ragtag group of misfits on a space odyssey for their salvation, and the resulting adventures of the _Lost Light _will change the universe forever.

A/N: Once upon a time there was a fangirl who, while immensely fascinated with the major plot aspects, characters, and settings of Roche, Roberts, and Miline in _The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye_, hated pretty much everything else in the series (from the writing quality, to the eight million random plot holes that have yet to be resolved at the time of this writing, to the mercurial treatment of disabilities, the list goes on). Therefore, she decided to just stop bitching about it and write her own version of MTMTE. No regrets, and no going back.

OVERALL FANFIC RATING: M/R – X/NC-17 (if such content occurs, it will be posted off at AO3.)

PROLOGUE RATING: PG/K+

WARNINGS: This fanfic will include numerous triggering subjects such as ableism, bigotry/"racism", rape and other forms of sexual assault, physical, mental, and emotional abuse, issues of abortion and choice, genocide, war crimes, and physical, mental, emotional, and sexual torture. This fanfic will also buck the sexist trend of the ongoing comic by "femme-inizing" select members of the cast. There will be "same-gender" relationships between robots and they will be having robobabies. There will also be an extremely physically powerful, important, femme original femme OC coming in later and here to stay when she does arrive, so if the sight of any powerful female OC in a fanfiction makes you scream "MARY SUE" while your knees jerk so high in the air you might as well be doing yoga, this may not be the fic for you. There will also be numerous other femme, mech, and neutral (non-gendered) OCs in this fic, so again, same warning above applies here. With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy!

* * *

_Prologue: What's Her Name?_

* * *

" Sooooo…this is her? This is my ship?"

The black and white law enforcement Autobot known as Lieutenant Commander Prowl—former second-in-command to the eleventh Prime and current co-ruler of post-war Cybertron—nodded in her usual solemn, critical fashion at the garishly red, yellow, and orange official leader of the Cybertronian race. Ah yes, their new leader, the twelfth, the successor of the dead eleventh. Their young, charismatic, uneducated, new leader. Their brash, overconfident, reckless new leader. The leader that could lead a swarm of scraplets off a planet with a shining grin and a handful of beguiling words. The leader who always shot first and asked questions later, and who thought all consequences could be handled with an injection of enthusiasm and a ream of paperwork. The leader who bled bravery, spewed informality, and swam in ego.

The leader that was leaving them all too soon.

" Wow." The mech formerly known as Hot Rod and redesignated Rodimus Prime just two weeks before strode closer to the edge of the classified dock with his usual springy gait, eyes trained up at the colossal white and red Cybertronian Class G Colonization ship. The ship was a relic from six centuries past—probably one of the last members of the Cybertronian Fleet constructed before the beginning of the war. After their conflict—and subsequently, their atrocities—spilled onto neighboring planets with dire results, the Galactic Council blacklisted the Cybertronian race from their membership and destroyed a majority of their once numerous Space Bridges in order to slow the descent of their madness onto council-protected planets.

Not that Prowl blamed them—it rattled her to her peds whenever she realized how many planets and civilizations both the Autobots and Decepticons had unwittingly destroyed and endangered with their vendettas against each other—however, it did not change the fact that the council's actions would make this journey all the harder. Not only was an officially designated "hostile race" traversing through council-controlled space just asking for a death sentence, but when the space bridges were annihilated, ship production on Cybertron ceased indefinitely, so the best vessel they had to rely on was a hastily-renovated six-century old ship that had disappeared from all public record until a gaggle of NAILS had hauled it into dry dock three weeks before for repairs and vanished without a trace. Plus, no space bridges equated to no intergalactic shortcuts; the absconding party would have to take the long way through the Silicate Galaxy, which could cost them time they didn't have.

Not the most reassuring start to the impending journey.

Rodimus scanned reverently over the ship for a few kliks before turning back to Prowl and the two other Autobots flanking her. " Will she do?"

"From what we can tell, she's in excellent condition. The blueprints of the ship are no longer on file, but we had Wheeljack and Perceptor pore over her engines, systems, weapons, and structures, and they gave her a clean bill of health." Lieutenant Commander Bumblebee—the second of Optimus's chosen co-council—sighed and leaned heavily his cane, right arm straining from the still unfamiliar effort. While walking and standing had once come easily to yellow minibot, high-velocity shrapnel had peppered his right leg during the twilight of the penultimate battle, resulting in a lifelong handicap that had further dampened his already dour spirits. " However, no matter what the results of that examination would have been, she's your only option. We have no other ships left that have the capability to both transport a bunch of people _and_ defend them. Like it or not, she's the best you've got."

" No, no, don't get me wrong—I _really _like her." The grin on Rodimus' face should have been banned by the Tyrest Accords for excessive levels of charm. " She's got character. This is a ship that has stories to tell." After a moment, Rodimus' face fell into a mask of quiet contemplation, and he leaned against the guardrail, arms akimbo. " Speaking of scientists, I think Perceptor's going to go with us. Wheeljack's dedicated to staying, but I saw her and Drift's names on the early boarding docket when I checked it a groon ago."

" Not entirely unexpected." Prowl's dour expression softened at her third companion's smooth, lyrical voice, and the black hand twined around her white fingers gave her a reassuring squeeze. Glancing over to her right, she saw that her black and white bondmate Jazz—Lieutenant Commander, head of Special Operations for the Autobots, former third-in-command under Optimus Prime, and third co-council of Cybertron—smiling softly, though his visor was dimmed. "We all knew a lot of people were going to jump ship—literally—when we made the announcement. I think I was the only one _not _surprised that we filled up the two-hundred seats in an orn."

" I thought bots would wish to stay and fight." Prowl herself was even shocked at the icy edges of her clipped words, inadvertently releasing some of the seven centuries of bitterness wound up tightly in her core. " I thought they would want to help restore the planet we worked so hard to win, to change, to make our own. I thought better of them."

"Prowl." Bumblebee's voice was equally harsh, albeit exhausted. "Like it or not, these bots are still, in an unknowing way, fighting for us. We all know how this venture could turn out."

The resulting silence was so deafening that you could have heard a scraplet blink.

After a few seconds of suffocating in apprehension, Bumblebee noisily pursed his lips and continued, occasionally trying to shift more weight onto his right leg and failing. "These bots may be our only chance—our only hope of survival—so we can't keep everyone on the planet. Like it or not, the only ones that survive may be the ones that leave on the ship tomorrow, so let them go. Hell, I'm kind of glad Perceptor is going; Rodimus here will need all the help he can get."

" Hey, I'm still your leader, so show some respect." The words Rodimus spoke were harsh, but the smile with which they were said softened the blow. Bumblebee, Prowl, and Jazz lowered their gazes demurely at the gentle admonition and Rodimus soon returned his attention to the ship. " Anyway, Bumblebee's right. The bigger the variety, the greater chance we avoid a bottleneck if the last case scenario ever occurs." Rodimus paused for a moment, clenching his fists. " But we're not giving up on Cybertron yet."

" No, we aren't." Jazz agreed, but Prowl resisted the urge to keen in despair.

_Why is this happening, Optimus, why did you leave? He can't lead, I can't lead, we can't lead, he's going to fail, he can't save us, we can't save ourselves, not without you, so please, please come back…_

Jazz side-eyed Prowl at the distraught look etched into her normally stern faceplates as Rodimus prattled on, leaning over the guardrail to skim his fingers along the edge of the ship. The enamel plating was smooth and cool to the touch.

" Tomorrow will be a new beginning, a rebirth. We're going to head out there, find the Knights of Cybertron, come back, and kill whatever's coming to kill us. We won't fail—no, _I _won't fail my people." The uncharacteristic solemnity caused the co-council to tear their gazes from their peds and stare at his flamboyantly painted back.

"You better not," Prowl concurred. " Our entire civilization is on your shoulders now, and you can't afford to drop it. Not like everything else you've ever abandoned."

Rodimus startled, momentarily taken aback as his hand stalled in its tactile examination of the ship's hull. For a moment he seemed to consider whether or not he'd reprimand Prowl for her "insubordination", but then decided to change the subject instead, hand resuming its course along a mended gouge—he couldn't tell if it had been caused by weapon fire or space debris.

" So, does she have a name?"

" Huh?" The normally unflappable Jazz, already taken aback by Prowl's bold words, was reeled by the abrupt change in conversation. "What do you mean?"

" The ship, Jazz. What's her name?" The flame colored mech chuckled. "I can't well captain the Cybertronians' last hope for survival without knowing its designation."

Once again, silence.

" Her name," Bumblebee finally intoned, "is the _Lost Light_."


	2. Chapter 1 - Unexpected Reunions

**The Lost Light Logbook 1 – The Road Less Traveled**

**Chapter 1: Unexpected Reunions**

**CHAPTER RATING: K+ - T for language and violence.**

* * *

_So, they have become aware of our machinations._

_**Yes, but they do not yet understand the scope or the means. While the situation has become dire, it can still be rectified before it is exacerbated beyond repair.**_

_How much do you believe they know?_

_**From what I have analyzed of their transmissions, all that they know is that they must find the Knights of Cybertron.**_

_How do they plan on finding them?_

_**I fear that their creator God has bestowed upon them the Circumspectionem. **_

_We must work to acquire it from the Prime._

_**Even if we did, it would be useless in our possession. I am certain that Coryphaeus enchanted it so that it can only be read in the hands of the chosen of the Matrix.**_

_If that is the case, then they have an advantage that we can never possess. We must work in haste to locate the Circle of Light and the final two._

_**Patience, my friend. Remember, our influence grows stronger every moment. Soon we will be able to breach fully into the light matter spectrum, and our options will no longer be so limited.**_

_But until then? We cannot afford to grant them any quarter. Remember the mistakes our ancestors made._

_**I do, and I have prepared. While they may be sparse and weak, we still are able to slide tendrils into their plane, and thus we can act. I know the location of their ship and our agents have already put everything into place.**_

_You mean…?_

_**Yes, the cargo has been loaded, the trigger poised, and the trap set. One way or another, they will not survive to see the two Bright Ones.**_

_And you are certain?_

_**Helios, I am disappointed in you. Have you ever known me to be wrong about Primus' Chosen?**_

_No, but remember our forbearers. Remember their mistakes. That you have not been proven wrong yet does not mean you are infallible._

_**Then what does it mean?**_

_That you are merely extremely lucky._

* * *

" Alright, next passenger, please, and let's hurry it along. We depart in less than two cycles."

Red Alert—former security director of the Autobots and appointed security chief of the _Lost Light_, checked Animus' name off the passenger list and raised a tremulous hand to wipe the silicate dust off her prominent sensory horns. Only one hundred passengers out of the official 208 had boarded, and they only had approximately two Earth hours to get everyone squared away and conduct a pre-flight check before departing. The sturdy femme heaved a sigh and shuttered her optics at the inevitable crush of procrastinators that would probably occur in one more cycle. For the seventh time that klik she pined for Cetroflex, mentally sorted through the thirty other pre-launch tasks she had to conduct after the passenger manifest had been completed, fought the sparks building in her helm, and wished she was in private so Inferno could massage her aching back struts.

Good heavens, if the journey was this stressful before it even began, how would she survived living in close quarters with a couple hundred of the most grating and untrustworthy bots in the universe?!

At the sound of soft footsteps padding up the gangplank, Red Alert wrenched herself out of her harried processor and forced her weary eyes open, scanning preemptively down the passenger manifest. " Serial number, please?"

" One hundred million." Red Alert paused at the gentle, accented voice, identifying it as intimately familiar in the haze that was her current mental state but just unable to place a face with the frequency.

" One hundred million! That's an impressive serial code, er…"

The voice vented a sigh before lightly chuckling. " Come now, Red Alert, I'm not _that _unnoticeable, am I? After all, I was your psychiatrist for six centuries."

_That's—!_

Surprise flooded Red Alert's spark as her head jolted up from the datapad, angular blue optics meaning a similarly colored set of warm, perfectly circular eyes and prominent eyebrows.

" Rung!"

The psychiatrist known as Rung laughed again while adjusting the large gray box in his thin arms. The small-statured mech was all orange plating, silver underbody, and awkward, gangly limbs, and the box was almost too big for him to hold comfortably. "Thank goodness! I was afraid that I was truly becoming invisible after six million years, if even you didn't recognize me." Warmth and relief sunk into Red Alert's plating, temporarily driving away her nagging aches and pains, and her servos began to shake from excitement instead of exhaustion.

" Dear Primus, Rung! You're alive!" Red Alert was not the type of femme that regularly partook in public displays of affection (much to her sparkmate's eternal chagrin), but that didn't stop her from clasping her hands over those of her doctor and friend—the only one aside from Inferno that she trusted absolutely. " I can't believe—how have you—where have—you're coming—oh my Goodness, that must be heavy, here, let me take it from you—!"

" Really, Red, that's not necessary…" Rung's protests were feeble, however, and his shoulders sagged in relief as Red Alert took the (surprisingly heavy) box from him and set it on the gangplank next to them. " However, I do appreciate it—I had to carry this all the way from the Seventh Quarter."

" That's quite a walk! Why didn't you just use your alt mode to carry it?"

" You forget that I transform into a rather useless communications maintenance machine. I'd barely be able to carry an energon cube, let alone all of my models."

" Models? Oh, right!"

The now kneeling white and red femme pried open the container's lid to find close to a hundred model ships—mainly Arks—tenderly cradled in mesh and stacked neatly into rows. The security director recognized a few that had been constant fixtures on Rung's shelves and desk in the Iaconian Golden District for at least six centuries—and she was quite flattered to spy a particular red and gray model on the very top of the pile; it was the first creation day gift she had ever given him, soon after she began treatment. " I can't believe you managed to save so many of them!" She remarked, gently sliding her fingers over her gift, amazed not only that it had survived the numerous early war bombings of the city, but that he had also chosen to save it out of the thousands of ships he had collected over his remarkably long lifespan.

" That one has always been one of my favorites." Rung, ever astute, answered Red Alert's unspoken question, and she didn't try to suppress the giddy smile that touched her lip plates. " I suppose you'll have to check them for contraband, right? Please do be careful, some of them are in desperate need of repairs…"

" No need." Red Alert snapped the lid back on the box, stood to her full height, and quickly marked off his cargo as "checked and cleared" on her PADD. " If there's one person I can trust, it's you, so feel free to go on ahead."

" Red…thank you…" Rung's voice trailed off, the doctor overwhelmed by the amount of trust granted to him by the bot possessing the worst case of Paranoid Personality Disorder he had ever encountered in his medical career. He quickly glanced behind him to see if he was holding up the line and, seeing that there were no other passengers waiting to board and that they were alone, strode up to Red and put a delicate hand on her shoulder. " How have you been, Red? It's been five centuries since I've seen you."

Red Alert soundlessly opened and closed her mouth several times as she debated whether or not to tell him the truth at that moment in time. Her weariness returned at full force and her head began to ring with the familiar thrum of near-critical electric charge, so she decided to be brief yet truthful.

" Not well, to be honest. It was fine at the beginning of the war—I followed as many of your suggestions as I could to keep my glitches in check and Inferno…well, as you know, Inferno has been a life saver ever since she entered my life. However, three centuries ago they began rationing medication, and I lost my supply of Cetroflex."

" What?!" The psychiatrist was clearly shocked and a little bit disturbed. " You mean you've been off your medication for three centuries?"

Before she could verbally reply, Red tensed and yelped in pain as her helm exploded with static and knives of pain, horns blazing brilliantly white and colors imploding and rearranging in front of her optics. She crashed to her knees, clutched her sides, and tucked her helm into her chest to ride out the storm (while being slightly comforted by the fact that the only other bot around was her psychiatrist and had seen her glitch up hundreds of times in the past), groaning in resigned agony.

A familiar set of cool, practiced hands wrapped around her frame and rocked her back and forth, and Red Alert sunk into the familiar, soothing embrace as a falling bot would sink into a life net. After a few Earth minutes (which always felt more like Earth hours to Red Alert whenever she relapsed) the shock dissipated, her horns and optics returned to normal functioning, and the piercing headache faded away into a light throbbing that would last the rest of the orn. Slowly pulling away from Rung's embrace, she sat back on her knees and onlined her optics to find him gazing at her worriedly.

" I suppose that answers your question."

" Yes, I suppose it does." Rung's voice was low and soft as he helped her to her feet. " I suppose your paranoia has also consequently gotten worse?"

Red Alert glanced to the right, gaze fixing on a destroyed skyscraper several miles in the distance. " Yes." Her voice teemed with shame and self-loathing.

Rung's long fingers grasped her chin and tilted her head back to face him. " Don't be like that, Red. It's not your fault." His face showed nothing but understanding and Red Alert slumped in relief. She had been unreasonably dreading that he would be angry at her setbacks. " Don't worry—we'll have plenty of time to work with each other again once the voyage begins. I'll also talk to the CMO about acquiring your medication again—"

" _Hey, Reeeeeed!"_

Both Red Alert and Rung started and spun around, watching as a familiar black and red fire rescue bot dashed up the gangway towards them with her signature heavy gait. " 'Ferno, what are you doing over here? You're supposed to be checking the exterior of the ship!"

" I know, Red, but ah felt you having a fit and wanted to make sure you're okay!" Inferno—former Rescue Bot and Chief of Internal Operations/Quartermaster on the _Lost Light_—skidded to a halt in front of the pair and vented heavily, hands on her knees. " You alright, darlin'? That one felt nasty."

" I'm quite well now, Inferno, thank you. I was fortunate enough to have Rung here to assist." Red Alert shook her helm in mock frustration, more than touched at the constant devotion and tolerance the exuberant femme showed her every day. A little part of her was always selfishly delighted that she had a bondmate that would run clear across the planet to save her if she even let out the quietest peep of distress. It was a more than comforting thought.

At the mention of Rung's name, Inferno snapped up like a spring and faced the psychiatrist with a near manic grin. " Holy chromium, ah can't believe it! Doc!"

The tiny psychiatrist yelped in surprise as he suddenly found himself hauled off his feet and being squeezed for dear life. " Oh man, Doc, ah can't believe you're still alive! You have no idea how happy ah am to see you! Are you comin' with us? Of course you're comin' with us, why else would you be here?"

" Of course I'm coming, Inferno." Rung wheezed, legs and arms flailing pitifully as his intakes valves were smashed against a broad red chest. " Why else would I be here?"

" 'Ferno, _please_, while I'm sure he appreciates your…_enthusiasm, _you're smothering him to death."

" No ahm not! We don't need to breathe to live!" Nevertheless, the boisterous femme became cognizant of the tiny mech's distress and sheepishly set him on his feet. " You make good points as always, though. Sorry 'bout that, Doc, guess ah just got a little ahead of myself."

Rung shook his head good-naturedly as he heaved in great gulps of air. " No problem, Inferno. I'm please to see you both alive and well. It's good to know that I'll have at least two friends on the ship. I hear it's going to be quite a long voyage, and it would be so unpleasant to spend the whole time alone in my habsuite."

As Rung walked past the two sparkmates and leaned down to pick up his case, the fire rescue bots shared a pointed look at the mention of the journey. Red Alert quickly scrawled through Rung's boarding pass on her PADD, her spark sinking as she spied the large black four.

_Drat, he would have to have been Level Five to know about the __**real **__voyage officially._ She quickly snapped open her sparkbond and relayed the information to Inferno. "_I trust him unconditionally, but do you?"_

"_Course ah do, Red, an' we both know he can keep a secret, what with being a psychiatrist, ex-member of Psy Ops, an' all. Besides, __**everyone's**__ going to have to know eventually, no matter what Rodimus Prime believes."_

" _I know. We'll wait until we get off the planet, though. Can't risk planetary frequency eavesdropping."_

Some people would have blown of such a concern as another flare-up of Red Alert's innate paranoia. Inferno, however, had a high enough information clearance in the Civil War to know Red Alert's concerns were justified—how else had the Autobots kept secret tabs on the Decepticon attack ships before Megatron began buying signal jammers off the black market en masse? "_Good point. Let's wait until after we make our first quantum jump."_

With that matter settled, Red Alert gently reclosed the bond as Rung turned back to face the two mechs, cargo crate once again folded in his arms. " Inferno here is our Quartermaster. She'll lead you to your habsuite and get you all settled in." Red Alert trailed her eyes out to the docking bay entrance and emitted a weighed groan at the deluge of passengers just beginning to cram through the gates. " As for me, I have to check in over a hundred procrastinators in a cycle and a half. I'll come see you after we get spaceward."

" See you then, babe!" Inferno sneaked a brief kiss onto Red Alert's right sensory horn (causing her to groan and bat her face away) and slung an arm over Rung's shoulder, nearly causing the doctor to lose balance. Red Alert observed them for a few seconds more before striding down the ramp to meet the oncoming bot storm. " Ah know the perfect place for you doc. It's at the rear of the ship—some sort of office/habsuite combination. I assume you want to keep practicing while on board?"

" But of course. We wouldn't want everyone mutiny from space madness, now would we?" Rung beamed brightly at the quartermaster's kindness and she gave a hearty chuckle in return.

" No, that would be terrible. I know ahm glad you're on board, ah mean, for more than just Red's sake." Inferno drew a PADD out of subspace and pushed a few buttons, smirking in approval. "Yeah, the room's still unoccupied, so ah'll just register it here and we'll be on our way. You'll like it. Nice, spacious, and with lots of shelving units for your ships and files—kind of like your old office in Iacon."

After making a few more swipes on the datapad, Inferno subspaced the device, glanced around conspiratorially, and leaned closer to the psychiatrist, pressing her lips against his right audial sensor. " An' after ah get ya all squared away, ah'll take you to the medbay. Ratchet's coming with us, and ah know your reunion's been a long time comin'."

The psychiatrist visibly stiffened and Inferno pulled away and grinned down at him, relishing the way his entire face brightened at the prospect.

" I just _knew _he would be on the ship, if he had survived." Rungs voice had become jittery with excitement. " I'm so, so glad. Thank you Inferno, _thank you._" He began to stride quickly towards the ship, and Inferno had to skip to catch up with the now impatient mech.

" No problem, it's the least ah could do, after what you've done for Red. Ah still can't believe you survived the war, you know. Ah mean, no offence Doc, but you don't have the most…_hardy _constitution."

" Oh, I don't know, Inferno." Rung paused in his gait and frowned contemplatively, wondering where those engine noises were coming from all of the sudden and why they seemed to be increasing in volume. I've just always seemed to have a knack for keeping out of harm's—"

The doctor didn't have a chance to finish his sentence as a purple, ancient Cybertronian space cruiser suddenly slammed into him from his left side and sped away, tearing off his left arm and sending him flying backwards into Inferno. The crowd behind them screamed in surprise (Red Alert leading the pack in decibel level) as Inferno flung her arms around Rung to cushion his fall as she slammed onto her back. The box of models had gone careening into the air and—now empty—clattered onto the gangplank in front of them as a teal-colored military helicopter blasted past in hot pursuit, cackling maniacally with a voice everyone present knew _all _too well. Rung's model ships rained down atop and around their prone forms (with some shattering on impact), and Rung's detached arm ended up dejectedly hanging off the entrance ramp, bleeding and twitching with lingering electro-neurological pulses.

Inferno shook her head to clear the trauma-induced muzziness from her processor (although hearing Red Alert's panic-stricken wailing ever nearing was also a fantastic head-clearing agent) and looked around dazedly at the chaos encircling her as much as she could in her current state. She resisted the urge to move in order to prevent physically disturbing the groaning, agony-stricken psychiatrist sprawled atop her chassis, energon dripping from his ripped arm socket onto her windshield. She should probably turn on her wipers.

" You were sayin', Doc?"

* * *

The purple jet and teal helicopter, meanwhile, where already a kilometer away from the scene of the crime, zooming towards the towering peaks of the Manganese Mountains in a dogfight for two. As the flat metal tundra began to roll and sweep, the teal helicopter unexpectedly boosted forward in speed, transformed in midair, and fixed its clawed arms securely around the jet. The jet cursed audibly as the mono-opticed, ex-Wrecker Whirl activated his heel thrusters while simultaneously slamming a "fist" into the jet's right engine casing. The combination of external thrust and engine trauma was enough to destabilize the jet's flight path, and it began zooming towards the gaping, deformed lip of a jagged canyon. At the last second the purple jet transformed, gripped Whirl's arms, and shoved them both to the right, successfully throwing Whirl off but unable to slow down or stop his rapid descent.

The purple, bunny-eared bot collided rather spectacularly with the ground, kicking up several pounds of dust and several large rocks, one of which possessed karmic aim and smacked the rising Whirl straight in the optic. Curing and rubbing his singular eye (well, as much as he could, given his appendages), the ex-Wrecker kicked the offending rock into the distance with a string of curses before stumbling towards the prone bot, murderous intent clear in his frame.

" _**What in the name of Solus Prime is going on here?!"**_

Whirl's optic widened perceptibly as he spun around to face the source of the voice. Below him, the jetformer groaned audibly as he gradually returned to awareness.

" Oh hey, Ratchet, what's goin' on?"

" What do you mean, what's going on?!" Ratchet's finger was already out and pointing accusatorily, the CMO of the _Lost Light _and the preferred physician of three Primes in a row already livid and bearing down on him. Behind him Chromedome—mnemnosurgeon of renown—was struggling to catch up, having moved her companion Rewind—archivist also of renown and rumored consumer of "questionable media"—onto her back to allow the group to move faster. " What in Cybertron's name are you doing to Cyclonus?!"

" I caught Cyclonus desecrating bodies and he attacked me as a result. I suggest you look away if you have an aversion to exploding heads."

Though Whirl was called "fearless" by some and "master of the death wish" to others, he had to admit that no matter how brave he truly way, he was still scared witless at Ratchet thundering righteous indignation at him while nearly stabbing him in the only optic he had left with his pointer digit. Out of the corner of his now occupied eye Whirl saw that Rewind had clamored off of Chromedome's back and the pair was now watching the "show" intently, the blinking red light on the side of Rewind's head indicating that she was recording everything.

_Nosy little bolt-muncher. Someday I'm going to rip that damn camera right off and beat her to death wi—_

" _Whirl _was the one who was desecrating corpses." Whirl was jolted out of his own internal musings to see that Ratchet's untimely interference had given Cyclonus time to recover, and the purple mech was now sitting, speaking (albeit slowly), and rubbing at the one horn on his head—wait, _one?_ Whirl filled with a perverse delight at the sight of the gaping wound on the left side of Cyclonus' helm where his left protrusion should be, realizing that it must have broken off in the crash. " I wouldn't have said anything, but he just proceeded to try to kill me."

" Liar! Ratchet, you can't trust Cyclonus farther than you can throw him! Which, you have to admit, wouldn't be very far, given your slaggy hands—"

" _ENOUGH!_" Whirl's comment had been the straw that had broken the proverbial camel's back, and the mono-opticed bot suddenly found himself being slammed up against a nearby rock formation by a familiar pair of failing red hands. Behind them, Rewind and Chromedome had slowly tiptoed to Cyclonus and were now trying to help him up. " I don't care _who _was doing _what_, but all I know is that _no heads are going to be exploded today._ _**Clear?**_"

Whirl couldn't help but shiver at the low, steady, yet threatening tone Ratchet directed at him, and found himself nodding frantically without realizing it. " Yep, crystal, perfectly."

" Good." A fake grin plastered itself on Ratchet's face as he released Whirl and took a few steps back (much to the ex-Wrecker's relief). The sense of relief dissipated when the doctor grabbed Whirl's arm and yanked him towards the other three, Cyclonus and Whirl glaring murderously at each other as the pair approached.

" Now, I take it that both of you are—unfortunately—coming with us on our little excursion." Ratchet's voice became strangely joyful at the mention of the trip, and Whirl nodded frantically once again to avoid ticking him off. Cyclonus also nodded, though it was after a moment of hesitation and a brief staring contest with the helicopter. " Well, I suggest we all get a move on. Final boarding call's going to go up soon, and this is one flight I don't want to miss."

" You sound quite pleased, Doctor." Cyclonus' signature low grumble floated over the group as they began to walk back towards the docking bay, with Ratchet, Rewind, and Chromedome having wedged themselves in between the feuding pair so they were as far apart as physically possible. " Are you that anxious to leave Cybertron?"

" I dunno…" Chromedome remarked knowingly, tracing the fingers of a dangling hand over one of Rewind's shoulders, the tiny femme giggling at the sensation. " Ratchet was his usual sunshine and daisies just a klik ago, then he got a call from Inferno on the ship and now he can't stop smiling."

" Preposterous," Ratchet grumbled, though his pace notably quickened. "I'm just happy to be getting off this ruined world. Too many bad memories. It's time for a fresh start, and where else to find one but on an epic quest?"

" Epic quest?!" Whirl couldn't help but laugh at the choice of words. " Get out of here! It's just an energy exploration venture! Hell, we'll be back on Cybertron in a groon, mark my words."

" So much for what you know." Ratchet's voice was suddenly sotto and contemplative.

" What do you mean by that?"

_**KATCHOOOM!**_

The world exploded into white and fuchsia before Whirl's eye and he was suddenly slammed back onto his aft as the metal and stone landscape cracked beneath his peds and a wave of force lifted him clean off his feet. When the explosion (_because what the hell else causes lights, sounds, and hurting_, the bot reasoned) cleared, Whirl and the others staggered to their peds and discovered a decent-sized hole where the ground in front of them used to be, the edges charred and partially melted.

" Well." Chromedome declared, and Whirl couldn't help but agree with that statement.

" He-he-hello?" A timid, muffled, weak voice echoed up from the gaping wound in the landscape. " Uh, bot who just spoke? Any chance of a hand?"

Cyclonus visibly stiffened at the sound of that voice, face contorting with a mixture of wonder and disbelief as he stumbled forward towards the hole (much to Whirl's amusement and piqued interest). The three bots moved to flank Cyclonus as he rammed his torso into the hole and let out a cry of disbelief. After a moment of wriggling, the ancient warrior surfaced from the newborn chasm and stood, bearing in shaking arms a…minibot?

"…What." Ratchet intoned, pointing at the dazed, legless, blue-and-white, visor-clad bot cradled protectively in Cyclonus' arms, whom was rubbing his visor with his tiny hands at the sudden shift in light.

" Tailgate…" Cyclonus was literally gaping in disbelief.

" _Tailgate?_" The other members of the ragtag party questioned in near perfect unison, having never heard of this bot before in their lives. At the sound of his name, Tailgate glanced around at the bots encircling him before staring up at his impromptu rescuer.

" Cyclonus! I _knew _you'd come for me! I'm so, so, _so _sorry I'm late! I was trying to hurry, but I fell down a sinkhole I didn't know was there, and the impact tore off my legs and damaged my T-cog, can you believe it?!"

"…No, no I can't." Cyclonus' voice was uncharacteristically soft as he continued to stare in disbelief down at the rambling minibot.

" Well, I kept passing out when I was trying to escape, but I eventually reached my energon rations and blew them up, and then you found me! I'm so _glad! _Harddrive's going to be so _slagged _at me for using them up already, but it's not like I had any other options." Tailgate suddenly gasped in horror, hands flying up to his masked mouth. " Oh no, have I made us late?! Has the ship left already?!"

Ratchet opened his mouth to say something, but finally settled on a loud cough, causing Tailgate and Cyclonus to turn their attention towards the medic.

" Uh, Cyclonus?" Tailgate sounded confused for the first time since his great escape. " Who are these guys? Are they coming with us?"

With that the minibot's optics fizzled out and he slumped in the bunny-eared bot's arms, pain and severe energon depletion causing him to offline yet again. Cyclonus stiffed in alarm at his friend's silence and fixed Ratchet with what looked like an honest-to-Primus _pleading _gaze.

_Oh yeah_, Whirl mused with glee, claws rubbing together as he began to mull over the future possibilities of blackmailing, threatening, and destroying Cyclonus that Tailgate's appearance miraculously granted him. _This voyage is going to be __**great**__._

Ratchet studied Cyclonus for a few seconds before sighing in defeat. " Yes, yes, Cyclonus, he can come. Now, can we get slagging going now? I already have three patients to treat when we get to the ship and we're going to be late for the final call as it is, so let's get!"

" This is turning into a very odd day." Rewind quipped, once again seated on Chromedome's shoulders as the new group of five began to spring towards the space dock.

" You said it, Rewind." Chromedome agreed, occasionally glancing at the limp Tailgate and the resulting _concerned _Cyclonus (of all things) as they dashed for their lives. Wonders never ceased. "And I have the feeling that it's just going to get weirder."

* * *

_There_, Ultra Magnus mused, hands on his hips and a deep sense of satisfaction seeping into his frame as he examined his newly organized habsuite and office. _Almost p__erfect._

It had taken him the great part of two orns, but his room was finally set up to his (extremely meticulous) standards. His placards were bolted neatly on his door, desk facing the window in an ideal position (one which would allow him to lean back in his chair and watch the stars drift by in his downtime), desk drawers compartmentalized, music collection and music disc player nestled discretely under his berth, and datapads organized according to alphabetical position and subject matter on his shelves. A few of the precious knickknacks he had gathered in his tenure as an Enforcer and the gifts _she _had given him over the course of the past century were placed around the room in positions that ensured only he would be able to see them at first glance because he knew where to look. They had been polished to the nines the orn before and gleamed with the rest of the now spotless room. Yes, almost perfect, and the Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accords was quite pleased with his results.

He was in such a good mood over his neat and pristine quarters, it was almost enough to wash out the bad taste he had in his mouth due to prior events. _Almost. _Two cycles ago, Ultra Magnus—the second-in-command of the _Lost Light—_had a private, classified, pre-flight meeting with Rodimus Prime and the third-in-command Drift about the _true _purpose of their voyage. When he had offhandedly remarked at the end of the meeting about how long it had taken him to scrub the room clean (an orn and a half) in order to participate in friendly banter with his compatriots, both had burst into uproarious laughter. " Good Primus, Ultra Magnus, what were you doing?" Drift had snickered in amusement at the stern bot. " Did you have to pick up every grain of dirt with a nano-tweezer?"

" No, don't you know, Drift?" Rodimus had slung an arm over the white swordsmech's shoulder, face nearly splitting in two from his grin. " He had to read any trespassing microorganism their rights and lock them in an itty-bitty brig. That's what they get for contaminating his office!"

Ultra Magnus brushed them off coldly, pretending (as he always did) that such comments did not hurt, and then promptly excused himself to finish organizing his datapads (after he had worked off his growing frustration in the training room). The task took him a cycle, but he was finally finished, and even Rodimus and Drift's mean-spirited jabs couldn't dampen his good humor.

…Much.

It really wasn't fair, Ultra Magnus decided, for Rodimus to make such comments. Drift he could understand—he barely knew the mech and what the knew of him didn't thrill him much anyway, so it wasn't like the swordsmech had any standards to meet—but as much as he hated to admit it, and wished it had never happened in the first place, he and Rodimus had… a _history_, and Ultra Magnus had told the mech known as Hot Rod too many times to count during said history about the myriad of reasons for his love of cleaning and organization. It wouldn't have surprised him, though, to discover that the brash young bot had never listened seriously to a word he said.

Not one bit.

It was true, as the other bots around him whispered and joked and teased about all of the time, that he had some form of OCD (or OCPD; he was still vacillating between which of the two diagnoses fit him best) but he had reigned it in steadily for vorns with extensive self-therapy and the power of will (he was too big for any medications to really have an effect on him, and the idea going to therapy again left his knees shaking with the echoes of past humiliation). A few centuries ago, however, he had come to the soothing realization that even if he could magically eliminate his disorder (though he doubted he would if he ever got the chance—he now regarded it as a part of who he was innately), he would still like rules, order, cleanliness, and linearity. He was simply a conservative bot with conservative tastes, and he enjoyed his job of towing the line when others would not or could not; it was almost therapeutic, in fact. Cleaning, organizing, listing rules, enforcing regulations, and any linear task in general both calmed his neuroses and relaxed him like (most) nothing else would. He worried so much, from the moment he awoke to the astrosecond he fell asleep—about the war, his condition, keeping everyone safe, _her_—that it was nice to have a straightforward task to focus on and take his mind off the worrying, shifting, unpredictable world. A mech like him needed constants to avoid going insane.

He had told him this. Several vorns ago he had told a young mech named Hot Rod about how he saw the world. He thought he would care enough to not forget, to remember, to understand.

He had been wrong.

After glancing at his door to make sure it was locked, Ultra Magnus reached into subspace and removed a flat, rectangular object swaddled in white mesh. Cradling it gently in his massive hands and forcing down the swells of worry and apprehension it had conjured, the Enforcer surveyed the room critically, knowing that his habsuite wouldn't be perfect until he found just the right spot-

The door chimed. Once. Twice. Three times.

_Well, speak of the Fallen._ Only one sentient being in the universe ever rang a doorbell that obnoxiously. Subspacing the object once again and schooling his face into its usual impenetrable hardness, he walked over to the door and opened it, revealing the cocky Prime that had been invading his thoughts just a klik before.

" Hello, Rodimus. Is there anything you need?"

Rodimus Prime smirked as he strode into Ultra Magnus' quarters. For a moment, Ultra Magnus nearly chastised him for his rudeness, but he steeled his glossa, reminding himself that things were different than they were vorns ago. Now the young, cocky mech that had once been such a large part of his life had transformed into the leader of his people—his most superior officer. _Primus must have a vendetta against me._

Rodimus' voice brought Ultra Magnus out of his annoyance (somewhat). " Nothing much. I just wanted to see how all of your _cleaning _was going." Ultra Magnus wasn't sure when he started hating Rodimus, but he couldn't stop the flames of anger from beginning to build in his fuel tank at that verbal slap. _He should know better._

" The cleaning went fine, as you can see. I just finished organizing everything." Sure enough, as soon as he said this, Rodimus got a devilish gleam in his optics and strode over to one of his more visible trinkets– the miniature replica of the capital center of the hub planet of the Corrolarian Empire that was the first gift _she _had ever given him– resting on the shelf above his berth. " Rodimus, please—!" It was too late, though; before Ultra Magnus could finish his sentence, he snatched up the figure, walked over to his desk, and plopped it on top.

" There!" Rodimus turned back to Ultra Magnus with a self-satisfied smirk, seemingly oblivious to the death glare being shot at him by the blue and red Enforcer. " Much better positioning—see how it catches the light from your desk lamp?"

" _No._" Rodimus was clearly shocked at the amount of venom in Ultra Magnus' usually cool, level voice, and staggered back as the large bot thundered past him, grabbed up the model, and returned it to its shelf. " I have a place for _everything_. You should _know _that." Ultra Magnus paused for a second, debating whether or not to say what was on his mind as he brushed some imaginary dust off the cityscape, before finally deciding to be honest. " I've told you a thousand times, _Hot Rod_, why I do what I do, but you seem to conveniently forget whenever it's good for a laugh."

" Hey, hey, hey." Rodimus flung up his hands in a conciliatory gesture, though Ultra Magnus didn't miss the brief flare of fury in those blue optics. " I _do_ remember, Magnus. I know you have issues, and that's why I do all of this."

"…Come again?"

" Look, you need to loosen up, Ultra Magnus. The world is changing, we're _all _changing, and if you don't learn to flex—to bend instead of break—you're just gonna snap and everyone else is going to leave you behind. I don't _want _that, Ultra Magnus. I want you to stay with us."

" Well, isn't _that_ easy for a neurotypical bot to reason."

" Ultra Magnus—"

" Why am I here, Rodimus? If you don't like how I'm so unbending, why did you ask me to be your second-in-command, since it's my very command style?" With a sigh of resignation, Ultra Magnus walked over to his berth and plopped down in it, back resting against the wall as he gazed wearily at his old flame. " Was it to "rehabilitate" me? Or so I could serve as your source of comic relief?"

" I asked you to be my second-in-command because you're a _hell _of a good commander." Rodimus' facial expression was a combination of apologetic and offended, and it almost made Ultra Magnus laugh. " Because even if you think you're a slag of a leader, I and others see differently, and I couldn't think of anyone else I'd rather have as my second-in-command—to lead in the off-chance I don't make it. Because you balance me out, as much as you'd hate to admit it, and I need someone to keep me level. Drift's my bro, but he's kind of—"

" A sycophant?"

"—eager to please. I need someone like you around to tell me what I don't want to hear." Rodimus heaved a mighty sigh and leaned against Ultra Magnus' desk, much to the seated bot's annoyance. _He's jolted all of my PADDs. Does he know how long it took me to arrange my desk just so? Does he know that disrupting it makes my fingers twitch uncontrollably? Sometimes I can't help it, Rodimus_. " Besides, it looks like somebot else has already done a pretty good job of mellowing you out."

"...excuse me?"

" Don't think I didn't notice the fact that you actually tried to make small talk with Drift and I after the meeting-or at least talk of things other than rules and regulations. And I've gotten wind of the fact that other bots have actually caught you _smiling _occasionally as of late, which is...well, pretty incredible. All I know is that you've changed, and it's for the better."

" Thank you, I guess." Ultra Magnus did not want to be forced to talk to his ex about _her__-_not when he wasn't even sure whether or not she was going to live or die-so he rapidly changed the subject, praying that Rodimus wouldn't notice his subtle desparation. " So, why did you come here, Rodimus? Was there something you forgot to mention in the meeting?"

" Oh, no, no, no…I just came by to tell you that the last passenger just boarded and we'll be ready to go in half a cycle, so you'd better report to the bridge for takeoff procedures."

" Will do, I'll be there in ten kliks."

" Excellent. I'll be off, then." Rodimus stood up straight and with a bounce headed to the door. At the threshold, however, he paused, and suddenly his body language changed, his frame seeming to collapse in upon itself. " Magnus?"

" Yes?" Magnus' voice was quiet, his spark pulsing at the extreme uncertainty that laced Rodimus' voice. " What is it, Rodimus?"

" Will I…do you think I'll be a good Prime?"

_Now **there's** a question I don't know how to answer._

" I'm not sure yet…but I know you have the potential and ability to be, so don't lose faith."

" …_Thank you._" The palatable relief in Rodimus' voice was enough to make Ultra Magnus forget about how much the bot had infuriated him over the past cycles—right now Hot Rod was standing before him once again, enthusiastic but so very unsure, and his spark couldn't help but go out to him. " I'll see you in five kliks." With that, the leader of the Autobots existed the room, door sliding shut with a pneumatic hiss behind him.

Only ten clicks before he'd have to report to the bridge…he would have to find the perfect spot for her picture after the launch.

After voice-locking the door once again, the Enforcer dimmed the room's lights and adjusted himself so that he was lying spread-eagled on his berth. He looked over at his now disturbed desk and decided to leave it for the next cycle (even though his fingers still clenched sporadically at the audacity of the disorder) and instead reached into his subspace pocket and removed his personal long-distance communicator/computer-the same model given to every member of the Galactic Council. Waking the PADD from sleep with gentle taps of his now trembling fingers, Ultra Magnus took a moment to collect his thoughts before opening his inbox with a shudder of dread.

No new messages.

She had been in surgery for the past two orns and still no word-how long was the procedure going to take?

Subspacing the communicator PADD once again, the red-and blue bot shuttered his optics in exhaustion and sagged into the surprisingly padded bedding, deciding to briefly allow himself to be consumed by the horror and anxiety that had been stalking him since she had agreed to undergo the fifty-fifty procedure two weeks before. As much as Ultra Magnus wished he could just go to sleep and forget the world until the fateful message came in, he knew that she wouldn't want him to put his entire life on hold just because of her. Besides, he was ever the dutiful solider and second-in-command, and he only had nine kliks to brood before he and 207 others set out to save Cybertron (and perhaps the Universe) itself.

_It's going to be a very long orn._

* * *

To be continued…

(Please read and review; constructive criticism is much appreciated, but flames are not!)


	3. Chapter 2 - An Explosive Beginning

**CHAPTER RATING: T for graphic violence, sexual content, and language.**

* * *

**Chapter 2 – An Explosive Beginning**

* * *

" _**SIX MILLION YEARS?!"**_

Ratchet yelped in surprise from the sink, the laser scalpel he was cleaning clattering to the floor. Well, at least he knew now that Tailgate had a healthy set of pipes on him after being in stasis lock underground for…well…six million years.

After picking up the scalpel and returning it to its proper slot in subspace, Ratchet walked back over to the newly repaired bomb disposal bot, who was curled up in a quivering, hyperventilating little ball on the medical berth. Cyclonus—who was sitting awkwardly next to the little bot—was rubbing his back in a futile effort to calm him down. Ratchet couldn't say he blamed the small bot for his distress—if he had been walking along one morning, randomly passed out, and woke up six million years later, he would probably be running down the street, sobbing and shrieking his intakes out.

…Not that he'd ever admit that to anyone.

" Tailgate, I know it's a shock, but you've got to calm down. You don't want to pass out again, do you?" Ratchet's words seemed to reach the little bot, and he appeared to be doing his best to even out his breaths, though his body remained taught and curled.

" I can't believe it…six million years…I missed the ship, I missed the voyage, I missed…everything." Cyclonus' hollow eyes flashed with what looked like sympathy, and he gently gripped the minibot's tiny head, turning the blue-visored optics to meet his own.

" Be glad that you missed the voyage, Tailgate. Zeta Prime and a majority of the others met a…horrible fate before we reached Benzuli. I was only one of the few to make it out alive." The bunny-eared bot trailed off, still unable to remember anything about what happened after the original Ark had been pulled through the dimensional gap into the Void. The last clear memory he possessed of that time was smacking his helm against his computer console in the commotion—after that he could only recall sound bytes of screams, flashes of black tentacles, and the acrid smell of decaying, processed energon, before finding himself awakening six million years later on a recharge slab with Megatron's cold visage looming above him.

Yes, Cyclonus supposed that even if he wasn't truly a Decepticon, and in the end had sided with the Autobots in order to win the war, he owed the now-deceased tyrant a great debt for rescuing him from whatever his prior fate had been. It was only because of Megatron that he had been granted a second chance at life, for which he was eternally grateful—because even though the glorious Cybertron he loved was now nothing but a memory echoing over a war-pitted planet he no longer truly recognized, he was still glad he had gotten a opportunity to help put an end to zis six centuries of suffering. No matter how zhe'd changed, he'd never stop loving and fighting for zir.

Perhaps it was it was simply a patriotic delusion, but it seemed to Cyclonus as if Primus zirself had decided to repay him for his actions by tearing zir own body asunder, allowing him the once-in-a-lifetime chance to reunite with the other great love of his life. Tailgate was sitting beside him once again, vibrating and pulsing and as squeaky and cute as he had always been, and the ancient warrior had discovered much to his steadily swelling horror that instead of having abandoned him all those years ago as he had so wrongly assumed, the little bot of many talents had simply experienced a near-fatal mishap on his way to the ship that left him bleeding, legless, and trapped underground. If it hadn't been for his little tiff with Whirl earlier that day…

Cyclonus resisted the urge to purge at such unspeakable thoughts, knowing that he would be nursing a deep sense of guilt for the rest of his lifespan for allowing his own pain and ego to override his common sense that day millions of years ago. He should have gone to look for Tailgate the moment he realized the bot was late for the Ark's final boarding call, his numerous comms going unanswered. The scars carved in his processor by prior abandonment had run deep, though, and as a result of their poisonous influence the purple bot had stupidly, stupidly _stupidly _concluded that Tailgate—who had always been so soft, kind, and loving to him— was simply a traitor who had balked at the last minute (as everyone else had done). The bomb disposal bot had been waiting six million years for Cyclonus to save him, and in return he had simply locked himself in his quarters, destroyed all of his furniture, and stewed in his own wretchedness until Nova Prime himself stomped in and drug his pathetic self to the bridge.

No—no matter which way one looked at it, Cyclonus had failed spectacularly in every sense of the word, and the ancient warrior knew that he would spend of the rest of his life making it up to the bomb disposal bot without expecting any forgiveness in return. Cowards like him deserved none.

" Well…" Ratchet's gruff voice pulled Cyclonus out of his pessimistic train of thought, and the bunny-eared bot blinked a few times to ground himself in the present. By that time, Tailgate had uncurled and was now seated uneasily, one small hand curved around Cyclonus' ring finger. " I think you two have quite a bit to talk about. Rodimus Prime will probably want to have a word with the both of you after we take off, but until then I suggest you try to get your bearings, Tailgate. Take it easy for a while to give your gyros a chance to recalibrate, and if you do decide to transform, do it slowly. Come right back if you have any more problems."

" Thanks, Doctor, for the new legs and everything." Tailgate hopped onto his feet and stared up at the chevroned mech curiously, Cyclonus lumbering gracelessly to his feet a few seconds later. " By the way, what Prime are we on now? You kind of lose track being trapped in a cave."

Ratchet chuckled. " My little friend, you have missed six other Primes; Roddy here was anointed the twelfth just two weeks ago."

" _**SIX OTHER PRIMES?!**_"

Cyclonus sighed in exasperation, gripping the wheezing bot by the shoulder and leading him towards the door. " Let's go find a habsuite, Tailgate."

" Remember, take it easy! I mean it!" Ratchet called after the retreating pair just before the doors slid shut behind them. For a few kliks the doctor eyed the door suspiciously, as if expecting ten other patients to blunder in the moment he decided to make the call. When the medbay remained as silent as a tomb, Ratchet sighed and opened his comm channel. " Medical bay's empty, Inferno. For the love of Primus, remember to bring the arm."

" Geeze, Doc, ahm not _stupid_, just _loud_. Get it right." Despite her indignant words, Inferno didn't sound too chagrined at the comment. " Be there in a just a klik!"

Ratchet's comm line snapped shut, and the old doctor plopped in his desk chair, rubbing his face with his aching servos, wondering what exactly you say to a sparkmate you haven't seen in person for five centuries. He had already set out the tools necessary to repair Rung's broken arm and remove the bond inhibitor chip he had installed so very long ago, so all he could do now was sit and wait. He hoped Inferno would hurry the hell up; the femme always seemed to run into some old acquaintance or spot something deliriously shiny every time she stepped outside and was consequently ten kilks late for every meeting. For the life of him, Ratchet could never quite understand what Red Alert saw in her other than blatant honestly.

Fortunately—maybe because she was bonded herself and thus understood what Ratchet was going through—Inferno seemed to have made a beeline for the medical bay, because approximately one klik later there was an enthusiastic pounding on the door. " _Ratchet! Special delivery!_"

Ratchet sprung to his feet in shock—had so much time passed already? " It's open, it's open!"

" Ah, good!" The doors split apart with a pneumatic hiss, revealing a familiar psychiatrist cradled in wide, red arms. " Ta daaaaaaaaaaa!"

For a moment Ratchet's spark stopped cycling.

He and Rung had speculated many times in the past as to why the psychiatrist had been so frequently overlooked and forgotten over the course of his extremely long lifespan. It was Rung's opinion that since he was such an extreme introvert he tended to blend into the background of every crowd or social gathering. Ratchet, on the other hand, had a much different opinion. Sure, he would say while holding the frustrated psychiatrist in his arms after a long day of being seldom heard, Rung was definitely the quiet, gentle type, and thus it was hard to make his voice heard over the more boisterous bots. However, it was his opinion that Rung vanished so easily from people's minds because he was unchanging. The psychiatrist had always been adamantly against frame alterations of any kind, and as a result had never even been so much as detailed after being upgraded to his adult form. Rung had looked exactly the same for six million years, and Ratchet theorized that Rung had achieved the same status in the public's eye as the sky—always there, rarely consciously noticed, but comfortingly unyielding to the stressors of time and entropy.

And now here Ratchet was, staring into those wide blue optics he had so sorely missed in the times when solar cycles would pass without a single communication between the two, and found himself going weak with relief at how even after surviving a bloody, costly civil war, Rung was still _Rung. _Same gangly limbs (although one was currently being gripped in Inferno's free hand), same orange and silver plating, same quirky eyebrows and tender smile—no, Rung was just like the sky, forever a permanent fixture in Ratchet's life, and for that the aging medic was so eternally grateful. The war may have smothered the spark in his optics and slagged up his hands beyond possibly all repair, but his love for Rung was as unaltered as the bot himself—and if the amazed, giddy, watery look on Rung's face was any indication, the psychiatrist felt exactly the same about him.

"…Hello, Ratchet."

" Hello, Rung."

Inferno grinned brightly and strode over to the nearest medical berth. " I don't want to be the circuit-breaker in the room, so I'll just be on my way." She helped Rung seat himself comfortably on the berth before walking over to Ratchet and placing Rung's arm in his outstretched hands. " Looks like a clean break, so you shouldn't have much of a problem rewelding it."

" Your profound medical knowledge is once again indispensible, Inferno."

" You're welcome, grumpy-gus. Just to let you know, we're taking off in half a cycle, so be prepared for the ride of your lives. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go help Red Alert finish her pre-flight checks." And with that Inferno clomped out of the room, waving exuberantly at the pair of doctors as she slid through the closing doors.

For a moment, neither doctor said anything, simply starting at each other in wonder and disbelief that the long-awaited reunion was actually happening.

" Inferno's a good femme." Rung's voice was quiet, vaporous. "She did basic first aid on my arm, you know, so I wouldn't have to go the medical bay right away. She wanted us to be able to talk in private."

" Yeah." Ratchet's voice was equally diaphanous. " She's got a good spark—a _loud _one, but a good one."

" You get used to it after awhile."

" Yeah, I suppose you kind of _had _to, huh?"

" Yes."

They fell silent and spent another klik studying each other, expressions unreadable. Then Ratchet carefully set Rung's arm on a side table, voice locked the door, and sprung forward.

The CMO tumbled onto the berth and Rung flung himself into his arms, using his right arm to cling to the red and white medical bot for dear life. Ratchet fortunately had the foresight to embrace Rung in a way that wouldn't disturb the gaping wound that used to be his left arm, but outside of that, all professional decorum flew out the window at the feel of that slender frame nestled in his arms. Their mouths met again and again and again, clinging and sucking and twining and plunging as deep into each other as they could possibly get, the two mechs starving for physical affection and warmth and comfort and love after having been forced to spend five centuries apart. Their sparks pressed and whirred painfully against their casings, straining to break down the medical barriers keeping the bond apart and simply _feel_ each other again after such an excruciating distance, but both mechs were too drunk on each other to notice at first; all they could bring themselves to care about at that point was that they never wanted to stop touching each other—never wanted to be apart again.

Neither of them had any clue how long they had been ravishing each other in the eerily silent medbay, but eventually the burning ache of their sparks became too much to ignore, so Rung reluctantly pulled away from Ratchet's eager mouth, panting and glossy-eyed.

" Please…Ratchet. The chip first. Get rid of the chip first."

" B-but your…your arm…"

" _Frag_ the arm, you can fix that at any time!" Rung was faintly aware that he had started to cry, but couldn't bring himself to give a flying frag. " I'm tired, so tired Ratchet, and I just…oh _please_, I don't want to feel alone anymore. _Please…_"

" Oh, brightspark…"

Ratchet tightened his grip on Rung with his left arm while reaching for a screwdriver with the other. For once his hands behaved appropriately, the doctor prying open Rung's side paneling with ease. Discarding the screwdriver with a rather unprofessional toss, he then reached for a pair of nanoforceps and plunged them inside of Rung's internal circuitry.

At the beginning of the war, many bonded pairs that served in the military had a neigh-unbearable choice to make, and Rung and Ratchet had been no different. Normally in times of separation the sparkbond would have acted as a tether between the two mechs, allowing for thought and feeling and comfort to drift harmoniously between them no matter how many lightyears they were apart. With Ratchet being a high-ranking member of Prime's "war cabinet" and Rung a psy-ops bot (a position requiring the utmost secrecy, seeing as the division was jam-packed with noncombatants), both mechs had leaned heavily on their well-worn bond during the sunrise of the war in order to make tolerable the numerous lengthy separations their respective positions entailed. After the first century of the war had passed, however, both bots had been forced to consider how their sparkbond could be used against them—and subsequently the Autobot cause—if either mech were taken prisoner. While the Autobots had been far from saintly during the war, the Decepticons (especially the underground cells) had become notorious amongst all Cybertronians for their "creative" torture techniques, and it had soon become a well-known fact that some interrogators were willing to violate a mech's very spark to get the information they desired.

Eventually Optimus Prime had gotten wind of the Decpeticons having developed a technique that allowed them to hack sparkbonds to extract information while mentally crippling its possessors, and had advised Ratchet to consider medically suppressing his bond with Rung in order to keep them both safe from such an atrocity. At first Ratchet had vehemently protested such an action (leading to quite the screaming argument with the Prime himself in the middle of the central command chamber), and both he and Rung initially refused to sacrifice their long-standing happiness at Megatron's altar of terror. At that point in time they had been bondmates for 500,000 years and had created two adult children who were now stationed on two of Cybertron's neutral planetary territories, so they figured that they would simply weather the Civil War together as they had numerous storms in the past.

As the war escalated, however, and the shell-shocked, mentally shredded, permanently vegetative victims of "bond-plundering" began to roll across both he and Rung's desks, both doctors began to weigh the consequences yet again. It wasn't until the orn before Ratchet embarked on what would become Optimus Prime's 5,000 year space voyage to acquire the necessary energon and resources to defeat Megatron that the pair had finally conceded that it was better to be safe than sorry, and Ratchet personally installed a bond suppression chip in Rung the cycle before his departure, the two old lovers having postponed the inevitable until the very last minute. The silencing of a 500,000-year-old bond had been nauseating to the point of tears for both parties, and their later sporadic communications were insufficient to burn away the emptiness that stalked them for the five centuries they were apart. In the end, both Ratchet and Rung knew that they would never be truly happy, healthy, or whole until their sparks were able to sing to each other once again.

And now the time had finally come.

Ratchet had done the chip implantation/removal procedure enough times during the past 6,000 years to have become an expert in its execution, so it was easy enough for him—despite his stiff hands (_pleasedon'tfreezeupnotnowpleasedon't)_ and emotionally teetering processor—to locate the chip wedged into Rung's right side, give it the precise three clockwise, seven counterclockwise, and one clockwise turns, and one smooth yank later—

_**YES**_

_**THERE YOU ARE**_

Ratchet was able to retain his presence of mind long enough to throw the chip and forceps to the ground and reattach Rung's side plating with a solid "thwack" of a fist, but after that, the old medic allowed himself to come completely undone as he and Rung _crashed _into each other, sparks exploding with blistering heat and processors jolting and straining under the mutual weight of 5,000 years worth of memories, feelings, thoughts, and barely repressed longing. Colors kaleidoscoped in front of Ratchet's optics as he bundled the psychiatrist into his embrace as snugly as he could without aggravating that damnable wound of his, sturdy frame shuddering with heaving sobs as he clung to that wonderful presence with every ounce of his being. Rung joyously allowed himself to be cocooned away in the medic's frame, his own slender arms wrapped so tightly around Ratchet's neck that he threated to cut off his ventilation pathway as he wailed pitifully and mentally tugged and smothered at medic with his very life essence.

It _hurt_, all of those years of dammed-up _everything _suddenly breaking through the artificial levee and razing everything in its path. Both mechs were certain that part of the reason they were crying was due to the agony of their very reconnection. Yet said pain didn't matter one whit to either of them—in fact, they had each longed for such a pain every orn since their parting. It was the most divine agony outside either mech had experienced in their extended life cycles, and it made them both feel blissfully content and disgustingly perfect.

…well, almost.

" Ratchet, my arm…we should probably reattach my arm soon." Rung was always the voice of reason in their relationship (which was pretty reasonable in and of itself, given the two mechs partaking in it).

" Yeah. I know. Just five more kliks…five more kliks…"

" …I agree. Five more kliks it is."

They may have been just Earth minutes from abandoning their homeland, but it didn't bother Rung or Ratchet one bit, because after a five-century separation, they had finally returned home.

* * *

" Alright, Perceptor, activate the Magnificence System."

" Right away, Rodimus Prime."

Perceptor—former scientific counsel to the Wreckers and chief scientist on board the _Lost Light_ (much to Brainstorm's chagrin)—took a moment to look up from her control station on the bridge and examine the figures surrounding her. There was Rodimus Prime, sitting behind her in his captain's chair, legs crossed and bearing the most self-satisfied grin she'd ever seen in her life. Ultra Magnus (who was far more preferable company compared to their Prime) was quietly seated at the weapons control station directly to Rodimus' left, optics staring intently at the windows in front of them, obviously worrying over the massive crowd that had gathered by the space port to see them off. To Rodimus' left at the communications console was her bondmate Drift, hands pressed together and eyes closed in quiet meditation, though he gave her a quick mental caress at the feel of her optics on him. To her immediate right at the analysis station was Hound, the former scout having been assigned to the bridge crew due to her extensive knowledge of Xenobiology (something which would come in handy when they encountered alien lifeforms). The boxy green body was bouncing lightly in excitement, and Perceptor honestly wished she could shake her feeling of dread and join the gentle femme in her enthusiasm.

How could she be excited, though, when all she could think about were the world-ending consequences of their possible failure? When their entire species was on the line, how could she possibly smile?

" Any objections to the Prime's orders?"

" Nope." Drift finally opened his eyes and smiled reassuringly at her. Perceptor felt bad that all she could give in return was a wan quirk of her lips.

" No objections." Ultra Magnus rumbled, optics still combing through the images of the crowd in front of them.

" I'm good to go!" Hound chirped.

" Good." The red and black scientist nodded before looking back at the Prime. " Are you ready with the Circumspectionem, Rodimus?"

" I wouldn't have given the order if I wasn't, Perceptor."

" Very well. Activating the Magnificence System right…now."

Perceptor typed in her master control password and input the command that caused the transparent aluminum box surrounding the safety switch on her keyboard to fall away. Preceptor waited a klik for any last-minute objections, and when none came, the red and black scientist released the intake she had been holding and flipped the hard drive safety to the "off" position. Every computer screen on the bridge was immediately enveloped by a brilliant blue light as the keystone tactical AI of the Autobots interlinked with the _Lost Light's _mothercomputer, producing in its wake a supercomputer on par with Teletrann 1.

" Interface successful, Rodimus Prime. No signs of coding rejection. Fusion at seventy percent…eighty…ninety…fusion complete. Magnificence artificial intelligence coming online in five…four…three…two…one."

The console screens on the bridge faded back to their original light-blue tint as the rest of the ship flared to life around them. The ship's primary lighting switched on, the external doors were locked into place and sealed airtight, and the engines began to whir to life four decks below.

"Sweet!" Rodimus cheered in delight, opening up his communication screen and typing in a number. " Alright Jazz, Prowl, Bumblebee, all systems are go! Are we clear for takeoff?"

A transparent vidscreen flickered to life in front of the bridge crew, revealing the stern visage of Prowl, the jaunty smirk of Jazz, and the pensive frown of Bumblebee.

" The airspace is clear and no red flags were raised during boarding and the pre-flight check, so it looks to me like you cats are ready to clear out." Jazz nodded in affirmation. " Just circle her around the planet a few times to make sure everything's ace, okay?"

" You've got it. We'll be in contact with you all again after our first quantum jump to the Yatig Sector." The flame-colored mech paused and leaned back in his seat. " Any last words?"

" Only to tell you to take this seriously, to please return safely and soon, and for Primus' sake, be _careful_, Rodimus." Prowl's voice was brittle and tight.

" What Prowl said." Bumblebee shuffled a bit on the screen, obviously redistributing his weight. " Remember, we're all counting on you, and you may well be our last hope, so don't screw it up. May your wires never cross and your luster never dull."

" Till all are one." Rodimus declared, face taking a turn for the serious.

" Till all are one." The command team echoed, Prowl reaching to close the transmission.

Rodimus did the same, and the bridge fell silent once again. " Alright, as soon as I insert the Circumspectionem, we can be on our way."

" Are you sure it'll work when it's not in direct contact with you, Rodimus?" Drift inquired.

" We actually tested the system in high command earlier this orn." Perceptor replied. " As long as Rodimus remains on the ship and the Circumspectionem remains interlinked with the Magnificence, the internal sensors will be able to pick up on his energy and presence, and the starmap will continue functioning."

Rodimus pressed a bright blue button on his command console. In response, a large, sphere-shaped slot opened in front of him, and the flamed mech reached deep into his subspace pocket for the starmap originally bestowed upon Optimus Prime by Primus zirself The four other bots in the room watched the Prime intently as he extracted a palm-sized, unassuming sphere and looked it over surreptitiously. Though the sphere was mainly composed of plain, tarnished gold, a delicate line of old tongue characters were engraved in a perfect loop around the starmap's middle. Rodimus tightened his grip, and the fine characters began to pulsate with rainbow light.

" Well, here it is…the Circumspectionem." Rodimus mused, turning the sphere gently in his hand. " It's our only lead to the Knights of Cybertron, so let's all be careful not to break it, shall we?"

Rodimus chuckled to himself as he placed the Circumspectionem into the slot and pressed the blue button once again. The slot slid closed, and after a few moments of silence, the smooth, rolling voice of the Magnificence boomed through the speakers.

" **Starmap successfully interlinked with navigational systems. Coordinates identified, registered, and plotted. Course set. Auto-navigation is on."**

Perceptor breathed a sigh of relief as a map of the universe superimposed itself upon her screen. A large green dot was blinking at the edge of the Circumspectionem's chart, and Perceptor could only plead with the Thirteen that they would find the Knights of Cybertron at that navigational marker. From the distance estimates given by the Magnificence, it was going to be quite a long trip,

" Alright Perceptor." Rodimus voice cut through the turmoil in her processor. " Let's take her up and give her a test drive."

" Yes Rodimus. Docking clamps released, ascending now."

* * *

" _Attention all passengers, this is Rodimus Prime speaking!"_

Red Alert gave a yelp as the ship lurched under her feet at the same time Rodimus Prime's voice came blaring from the loudspeaker. She grabbed the wall for balance and glared indignantly at the intercom above her.

" _Well, it's officially cycle zero, and it's time we are off on our grand adventure! We've just received word from high command that we're clear for takeoff, so we'll be orbiting Cybertron a few times to make sure our systems are in the green before we officially head out. If anyone realizes that they get space sick or that they've forgotten their pet insecticon, speak now or forever hold your peace."_

" Egomaniacal bolt-muncher." The security director grumbled as she strode over to the ladder connecting the lower deck to the engine room, the dark silence of the corridor around her giving her the courage to say what she wouldn't dare repeat to any living souls save Inferno and Rung. " Wouldn't even postpone take off until I find out what's making noises in the engine room. Probably thinks I'm just hearing things, just like everyone else. I've told him that I haven't had an auditory hallucination for seven centuries, but no, no one listens to the paranoiac."

Red Alert signed, gripping the sides of the ladder tightly enough to dent. " Even though it was my paranoia that helped keep them alive during the war. They seem to forget that." Red Alert mashed her lips together in uncertainty before shaking her head, optics brightening. " However, I know that I have the best audio receptors in this corner of the galaxy, and even though there was nothing wrong down there a cycle ago, I _know _that I'm not hallucinating. There's something rustling down in the engine room, and I'm going to check it out." With a nod and a skip, the red and white femme slung herself onto the ladder and slid to the bottom of the shaft, feet slamming onto the floor below in mere astroseconds. It was reassuring to know that she still had the touch of an experienced Fire Rescue bot, even though it had been centuries since her last assignment.

Strange. Now that she was in the engine room proper, not only had the rustlings gotten louder, but they also had begun to sound distinctively more…_alive._

Red Alert drew her sidearm as she exited the elevator shaft, her thumb instinctively flicking the safety switch.

_Calm down, Red. Maybe it's just turbofoxes…in an engine room. Right._ Red Alert's horns were sparking ever so slightly as she ascended the stairway to the metal catwalks that snaked across the ceiling of the engine room.

While the clomping of Red Alert's feet on the metal gangways normally would have been deafening, the security director had tuned her audio receptors to the frequency of the strange noises, so the only things she heard as she strode towards the epicenter of the commotion (which, horrifically enough, seemed to be the quantum jump generators) were the clickings, scritchings, and _squelchings _of what sounded like at least three parties.

…Three parties with shadows on the farthest wall that looked nothing like turbofoxes.

Without a moment's hesitation, Red Alert crouched down in a defensive position, pried open Rodimus' personal comm frequency, reactivated her old reconnaissance protocols, and began shunting her audio and visual feeds to the Prime himself.

" _There, Rodimus," _she growled along the commlink. _" Still think I'm hallucinating?"_

" _Red, I…"_ Rodimus' exasperated voice stopped in its tracks, obviously registering the sounds of living slime and the tall, _tentacled_ shadows to which they appeared to belong. " _…I will never doubt you again. What in the name of the Pit __**are**__ those?"_

" _It's nothing I've ever seen before. I'm going to check it out, and would appreciate it if you sent me some back up."_

" _Give me a moment, Red."_ The femme felt the ship slow to a halt below her peds as she stood and began advancing again along the upper gangplank, sidearm trembling in her hands. " _Okay, I've stopped the ship for now, and Ultra Magnus is en route. For Primus' sake, be careful and maintain the feed—I've patched it through to the bridge, so we'll be seeing what you're seeing and hearing what you're hearing."_

" _Good, now if you don't mind, I would like to you be quiet so I can do my job." _Red Alert slammed the comm channel closed before Rodimus could reply, but left her sensory uplink active as requested. _If those __**things **__are targeting the quantum generators, then I don't have time to wait for Ultra Magnus. Well, here goes nothing…_

Finally reaching the gangplank just above the quantum generators—the sounds now near deafening to Red Alert's sensitive audios—the security director steeled herself, looked down over the railing—

—and screamed.

The three…creatures…turned away from the quantum generator they were huddled around to stare up at Red Alert with hollow, pupil-less, orange eyes. They were blobs of black and swirling grey, nearly amoeba-like in bodily structure, with strange pieces of metal sticking to and lodged inside of their bodies in seemingly random places. Their shapes bulged and shuddered, elongating at the sight of the petrified security director, their numerous metal-filled tentacles held aloft and quivering. The worst part of them, though, was their _stench._ They reeked of decaying organic sea creatures and their combined pungency was making Red Alert's optics water from one hundred feet above.

_Well, at least Rodimus Prime is seeing this too, so he won't think my glitches are just acting up again._

The only sight more disturbing than the creatures, though, was the large, blinking metallic device planted on the side of the quantum generator. Red Alert may not have known what exactly the creatures _were_, but the device screamed bomb in every known dialect.

It clicked.

" Rodimus!" Red Alert screamed into her comlink. " Rodimus, the dark ones are here! They're trying to blow up the quantum generator—they're trying to stop us!"

" _Red, get out of there—!"_

Rodimus' panicky order came just as the biggest creature launched two serrated tentacles at the red and white femme. She yelped and ducked to the side, but the appendages simply sliced the gangplank surrounding her to pieces, sending her tumbling to the ground. Fortunately Red Alert's rescue bot training was ever present, and she broke into a roll the moment she hit the floor, slivers of metal raining around her as the creatures slowly advanced upon her tumbling body.

" **Cy-ber-tro-ni-an**." Red Alert was uncertain where the speech was coming from, given that the creatures appeared to have no mouths, but they were speaking none-the-less in garbled, bubbling unison. **" Des-troy the Cy-ber-tro-ni-an! Des-tr-oy ALL.**"

Red Alert clamored into a crouch, grabbed her sidearm, and fired five shots into each creature. Though her weapon's ammunition consisted of superheated plasma bolts, the creatures seemed to simply absorb the blue blasts without missing a step—though the word "slither" may have been more appropriate to describe the way the beings were closing in upon the petrified security director._ Oh good, my weapons are useless. This is bad. This is phenomenally bad. If I survive this, I'm going to have nightmares for the rest of my life, and Rung's just going to have to prescribe me another sleep aid._

Red Alert jumped backwards as five tentacles slammed down upon the floor where she had just been standing. The metal embedded in the tentacles turned each appendage into a blunt force object, and the steel plating buckled under their combined impact. Red Alert slid to a halt fifty feet away from the creatures and noticed that behind them, the bomb strapped to the quantum generator was starting to blink faster. Time was running out.

_I've got to get that bomb off. I'll deal with the creatures as soon as I take care of the bomb. They may kill me, but I can't let them destroy the ship, no matter what!_

" Rodimus…" she growled into her comlink. " If I don't make it out of this, tell Inferno that I regret nothing, and was thankful to the end that she never walked away." She would have normally opened the bond to tell the Quartermaster herself, but she didn't want Inferno to feel the moment she was sliced to death by a bunch of vengeful aliens bent on world domination. Or blown to pieces. Whichever came first.

" _Red Alert, wait, Ultra Magnus is almost there, just hold on!"_

Red Alert snapped the comlink shut and made a beeline towards the emergency containment supplies on the wall farthest away from her. The creatures tried to grab and slam her with her tentacles, but the seasoned war veteran dodged each with ease as she sprinted closer to her goal. _Almost there, almost there, please, Primus, just give me a little more time…_

Red Alert was just able to snatch the portable level ten containment field before a reeking, pulsating tentacle wrapped itself around her right leg. Yelping in surprise, the security director was barely able to maintain her grip on the device as she was pulled to the ground and tugged backwards by one of the creatures. The red and white femme used to her free hand to claw at the ground as she violently kicked at the tentacle with her free leg, but the creature didn't relent, and the smell was getting worse and worse as she slid closer and closer to her doom.

_I can't believe it's ending like this…I can't believe it's going to end like this…I've failed…I've failed __**everyone…**_

" **Oh no you don't!**"

Red Alert suddenly heard a creature shriek in terror behind her as the tentacle went slack around her leg. Wriggling free and staggering to her feet, the security director spun around at the very welcome voice.

" Ultra Magnus—!"

" Hurry, Red!" The blue and red disciplinarian had forcefully torn said tentacle off of the offending creature and was using it to restrain the disfigured monster. The other creatures heeded the cries of their fellow and were trying their damndest to beat and pry the bot away from it, but Ultra Magnus was much bigger and stronger than Red Alert and held fast against the assault. " While they're distracted—get the bomb _now!_"

" Right!"

As Ultra Magnus used his shoulder missiles to knock away his two assailants while continuing to "strangle" the third creature with its own limb, Red Alert dashed over to the quantum generator and began to pry the bomb off with her bare hands. The bomb was now superheating and flashing every astrosecond, and Red Alert was terrified that the pulling was going to cause it to go off, but Primus must have been smiling upon her that day because with a few sharp yanks the bomb tore from the quantum generator with a "schluck".

" Got it!"

Red Alert slapped the containment field on the bomb and activated it before tossing it as far away as she could. The glossy level ten barrier encircled the bomb as it sailed through the air, and Red Alert whirled around to face Ultra Magnus and the creatures before she could see where it landed. " It's done! Now what?!"

Ultra Magnus seemed to scan the room in search of ideas before focusing on the nearby emergency control panel. " Red, get to the controls and activate the emergency quantum jump!"

Red Alert immediately discerned what the second-in-command had in mind." But Ultra Magnus, that's too dangerous—!"

" What other choice do we have, Red?! These things can't be destroyed conventionally!" By then the other two creatures had recovered from the twin missile blasts with disturbing ease and were once again slithering towards Ultra Magnus—only to be shoved backwards into the quantum generator as the Enforcer pitched their wounded friend right in their "faces". " Now, hurry, before they can move again! _That's an order!_"

" Yes sir!" As tears of distress and sensory overload began to stream down her cheeks, Red Alert stumbled to the controls and frantically slammed the emergency quantum jump button, fist punching straight through the transparent aluminum and nearly snapping the switch in half.

**Emergency quantum jump initiated. Jumping in five…four…three…two…one…**

Red Alert shrieked in surprise as Ultra Magnus—badly dented and bleeding, but otherwise unharmed—ran up, took her in his arms, and pinned them both against the ground. Red Alert saw a blue field of energy spring up around them before Ultra Magnus tucked her helm into his chest and covered her with his body as best he could. Red Alert cowered gratefully in her comrade's arms and shuttered her optics just as she heard the bomb detonate two hundred feet away from them—

**Zero. Beginning emergency jump.**

* * *

At first there was the _Lost Light_, the ship having stalled in the air only a few minutes after take off, causing Prowl to wonder whether or not they had experienced some sort of engine failure.

Then there was the explosion.

Prowl, Bumblebee, Jazz, and about three hundred puzzled spectators watched as the sky surrounding the _Lost Light_ ignited into an inferno of dancing flame and deafening booms. Rolling black clouds joined forces with the fire to completely eclipse the ship from view as the gathered Cybertronians were pushed backwards by a wave of turgid air and scalding heat. Prowl flung her hands in front of her eyes and tottered backwards, just barely able to separate the sound of Bumblebee's cane clattering to the ground from the din of panic enveloping them. She felt Jazz wrap his arms around her waist to keep her from falling backwards any further as a second, unknown wave of force collided with them, consisting not of sound but pure energy.

Then…stillness.

Prowl shakily dropped her hands to clasp those still secure around her middle, blinking rapidly in an attempt to clear the spots from her vision. All around her bots were running, screaming, calling for loved ones and friends as they attempted to pick up those still splayed on the ground. Beside her Bumblebee had fallen to his knees, and the law enforcement femme was shocked to see tears dripping from his optics.

" No…" The yellow bot shuddered, voice weak and wavering.

Prowl followed her smaller companion's gaze and found him staring at the pace where the _Lost Light _used to be.

Now there was nothing.

" No…" Bumblebee repeated, sinking his face into his hands.

Prowl stiffened in Jazz's arms as she searched the skyline for any sign of the wayward ship. But there was nothing. No intact ship and no wrecked ship. No melted scrap, no twisted bodies, no pitted white plating, no residual engine trails. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

" No…" Bumblebee's tone began an upward climb into hysteria. "No, no, no, no." Prowl felt Jazz quavering behind her as he clenched her tighter to his chassis.

"…the ship is gone, yet there's no sign of wreckage. What just happened?" Prowl's voice was razor sharp as she began to hail _Lost Light_ over and over again. " Rodimus, Rodimus come in? Are you there, Rodimus?" Static. " If you're doing this as a joke, it's not funny, Rodimus." Silence. " Rodimus Prime…Ultra Magnus…Drift… someone answer me!"

Dead air.

" _**Nooooooooooooooooooo!"**_

* * *

To be continued…


	4. Chapter 3 - The Cacophony of the Lost

**CHAPTER RATING – T for violence, death language, and sexual references**

* * *

**Chapter 3 – The Cacophony of the Lost**

* * *

_This is __**not **__a good start. _Rodimus Prime gritted his denta as he and Ultra Magnus surveyed the dusty, twilight planet, the rest of crew scattered throughout their fields of vision as they searched for their lost companions. _This may have been the __**worst **__possible start, outside of total destruction. This slag is the __**worst.**_

However, Rodimus did not for one moment blame Red Alert and Ultra Magnus for the events that had transpired. He had seen everything through Red Alert's neural hook-up, after all, and after seeing how impervious the dark ones had been to normal attacks, he had almost applauded Ultra Magnus' ingenuity in dealing with the situation. The emergency quantum jump had actually worked perfectly for its purpose—a survey of the offending generator after the jump revealed that it was now clogged with immobile goop and random pieces of a metal, and a single non-working quantum generator (out of ten) that they could probably fix was a small price to pay for surviving the launch of the ship.

First rule of interstellar travel: never stand next to a quantum generator when it's about to flaunt the laws of physics.

Unfortunately, the bomb that the dark ones had slapped onto the quantum generator had been composed of a currently unknown, absurdly _potent _explosive. Rodimus knew that he would have to give Red Alert a sizable raise (or the interstellar travel equivalent of one), because if she hadn't been able to successfully put a containment field on the bomb, the whole engine room (and, consequently, the ship) would have been decimated. The level ten containment field had been able to nullify a good portion of the blast—not a good enough portion, however, to prevent the severing of delicate communications circuitry and the systematic popping of the right hull of the ship. While they had been able to seal the hull breaches with internal force fields after only a klik, the rapid depressurization had managed to suck out forty of the passengers in that brief window of time, and the quantum jump had ended up flinging them so close to a random, uninhabited, organic planet (_Selicous, _Ultra Magnus had informed him after consulting his Galactic Council maps, _around 10,000 lightyears away from Cybertron_) that those 40 bots ended up being caught in its gravitational pull and sucked through its atmosphere. Rodimus had promptly landed the ship, ordered half of the ship to stay and repair the hull fractures and communications array, and the other half to scour the planet for their comrades, who may or may not have burned up in the atmosphere before hitting the ground.

So far, only twenty bots had been found, all alive but requiring transport back to the ship for a variety of repairs. The other twenty Cybertronians were still MIA, and with their planet surveying devices down due to the explosion, they would have to comb the planet the old fashioned way, which could possibly take orns of time they might not have had in the first place.

_Yeah, _Rodimus felt like sinking to his knees and howling in frustration, _noooot a good start to the epic quest._

" We'll find them, Rodimus, dead or alive." Ultra Magnus was infuriatingly calm as he surveyed the topographical information on Selicous on his Galactic Council PADD. "I believe our more pressing concern is the fact that the dark ones know of our mission."

" Wow, Magnus, way to fragging prioritize." The flame colored mech grumbled, shooting his second a scathing glare. He was near immediately stricken with remorse, however, at the brief flicker of hurt that crossed his SIC's features. " I'm sorry, Magnus, I'm just…" He sighed and ran a hand over his helm. "I'm just really fragging frustrated right now."

" I understand, Rodimus. Again, I take full responsibility for—"

" Dammnit, that wasn't your fault! You took the only action that was possible—if it hadn't been for you and Red, we all would have gone up in flames, so don't you dare try to take responsibility for something out of your control. It's just…"

" Yes?"

_What do I tell him? _Rodimus mused as he pursed his lips. _Do I tell him that the selfish part of me that's slagged off at having its most triumphant moment go up in smoke is winning out over the altruistic side of me that's worried about Cybertron and those other twenty bots? _" The dark ones." The young Prime decided to settle on a happy medium between his woes. " Like you said, they know we're onto them, they know what we're trying to do, and they're surprisingly immune to energy bullets. You ripping off their tentacles seemed to slow them down, but not by much."

" Indeed. " Ultra Magnus checked his messages once again (_for the tenth time this cycle, what is his __**deal?**_) before subspacing his PADD and rubbing his optics. " It's possible that, while immune to energy charges, they can be destroyed physically. What I'm more worried about, however, is what they'll try to throw at us next now that they know their original plans have failed."

" You think they'll throw something stronger at us?" Rodimus' spark chamber sunk into his stomach.

" Exactly. Remember what Optimus said before he died—he said that the dark ones in his vision started out weak but grew stronger as time passed. I think we were just lucky enough to have caught them at their weakest. When they show up next, though…"

" They'll be in stronger forms. Great." Rodimus clenched his fists and stared up at the steadily darkening sky—they would probably only have four more cycles to search for the missing passengers before having to call it a night. " If we could barely take them out when they're kids, how can we do it when they grow up?"

Ultra Magnus stilled, and when he began to speak after a moment's hesitation, he sounded almost…uncertain. " I believe I may know what they're becoming."

The young Prime's optics widened. " Really?"

" Yes. Do you remember that portable shield I used to protect Red and I from the blast?"

" Yeah. Amazing little thing." Even though the level ten containment field was unable to contain the massive, almost unnatural forces of the bomb, the small blue shield Ultra Magnus had thrown around himself and Red Alert had protected them from both the quantum radiation and the escaped shockwaves absolutely, allowing them to emerge from the engine room almost unscathed.

" That shield was given to me by a fellow Enforcer who specializes in neutralizing unnatural threats." Was it just the stress of the day, or did Ultra Magnus seem shy when mentioning his Galactic Council friend? " That shield works by absorbing energy from blasts and energy attacks and using the resulting power to bolster its surface against physical damage."

" Pretty nifty."

" The thing about the shield, though, is that it is only able to absorb a very specific set of energy frequencies. The fact that it was able to protect Red Alert and I from both the quantum radiation and the type of explosive used in the bomb almost confirms my hypothesis."

" And that is…?"

" The dark ones are Shifts."

Rodimus balked.

" No, no fragging way. No."

" Yes. That shield is used to protect against attacks by Shifts. However, given that I was able to physically harm the dark ones, I suspect that they have not yet become able to manifest themselves completely as Shifts. So at the moment they are more like Demishifts."

" Wait, wait, wait!" Rodimus processor was spinning, the shattering of what was supposed to be his big moment compounded by the enormity of the theory Ultra Magnus had shared and the implications of said theory if it was proven to be fact, and he stared at Ultra Magnus as if he was seeing the bot for the first time in his life. " Demishifts? Shifts? Dear Primus, if those things are actually Shifts…how do you know this? Why do you have that shield? Who the frag is your "friend" anyway? _What's going on, Ultra Magnus?_ "

" Rodimus…I…"

Their comlinks went off simultaneously.

" Rodimus Prime, Ultra Magnus." Chromedome's deep, morose voice echoed in their audios. " I have an update for the both of you. Good news and bad."

Rodimus and Ultra Magnus stared each other down for a moment more before their hands went up to their audios. " Read you loud and clear, Chromedome." Ultra Magnus rumbled. "What have you got?"

" Well, I'll give you the good news first. We've found fifteen more bots alive, and they were all able to roll back to the ship on their own power. Their injures aren't too bad—mostly just shaken up and dinged."

" That's fantastic!" Rodimus' voice once again donned its cheerful edge. " That leaves only five accounted for."

" About that…" The femme's voice trailed off in the wake of her leader's enthusiasm, and Rodimus felt his spark plummet yet again.

" About what, Chromedome?"

" Well…we've found Polaris and Hyperion. They're dead."

Rodimus Prime felt as if he'd been punched in the gut. _Frag it, the worst._

" Are you sure, Chromedome?" Ultra Magnus' optics were narrowed and his frown deeper than usual.

" Unfortunately, yes. Rewind and I are with Hoist and Grapple, and they just pulled the two of them up from the bottom of a lake. Apparently they were caught in a piece of the hull and were crushed by it. We think they were flung into the lake by the residual force of the impact."

" So, that leaves three still unaccounted for." The red and blue enforcer's voice was flat. " Databurst your coordinates—I'll be there shortly to pick up their bodies. Keep up your search in the meantime, but don't stray too far from them."

" Understood, sir. Chromedome out."

" You don't have to go get them, you know." Rodimus own tone was listless as Ultra Magnus pulled out his PADD once again and surveyed the databurst. " I'm sure Grapple and Hoist are able to do that just fine by themselves."

" Rodimus, I'm a car carrier. That makes me the best bot for the job." Ultra Magnus put his PADD away and gazed contemplatively at the Prime. " Besides, as necessary as they were or not, my actions were still partly responsible for their deactivations. I…I need to do this for them, at least."

" Magnus…"

" I'll be alright, Rodimus. How about you?"

" Me, I…?" Rodimus chuckled hollowly, hands attempting to wring the life from each other. " This is the worst, Ultra Magnus. This is not how I wanted things to start, not my first real actions as Prime."

" Nova Prime's first groons in office involved the systematic slaughter of the Quintessons. Sentinel Prime's first actions were to impose the Caste System. Optimus Prime's first action was to order the Siege of Kaon, which killed countless civilians. Considering the rather colorful histories of Primes past, I'd say the accidental death of two bots is not nearly the worst blemish that could be on your record." Ultra Magnus turned on his heel and began to walk away.

" _Magnus_!" The large bot stopped at the exasperated cry, but kept his back to the Prime. " When you get back, we're talking about this. The…the _Shifts_ and how you know about them and your Enforcer friend and everything."

" Of course. I'll see you in a cycle."

Rodimus Prime set his jaw and resisted the urge to scream profanities at the red and blue Enforcer as the offending bot transformed and rolled off into the distance. He didn't care whether or not Ultra Magnus was still bitter at him for what happened during their relationship—that was _no _excuse for the way he had treated him. Like he was some sort of—some sort of irresponsible _sparkling _that he could brush off when the questions got too inconvenient_._

" Yeah, Ultra Magnus, when you get back, we're definitely going to talk about things." Even the Prime was perturbed at the loathing in his voice. " I don't care how I wronged you…I'm the Prime now, and your disrespect will _not _be tolerated, so enjoy yourself while you can."

* * *

Blaster was not normally the neutral to lose zir temper—zie was known along with Jazz to be one of the mellowest bots around. However, zie had seen some messed up communications arrays in zir time, but _this? _This was something else. That explosion had completely popped nearly every single main line cable out of place, and to replace every single one unassisted….

" _**Arrrrrrgggg!**_" Blaster abruptly stood from zir place along the wall—almost every single panel popped and shuffled to give zir proper access to the communications wiring—and began kicking the lower wall with a megaton of pent-up aggression. " _**Primus fragging damnit!"**_

" Carrier, calm down!" Eject—Blaster's youngest child and the only one of zir four still connected to zir through a cassette bond—grabbed Blaster's leg with small blue and white arms and held on for dear life. " Kicking the wall won't help, it'll just make things worse!"

" _**It's making me feel better!" **_Blaster practically roared in frustration, causing Eject to release zir and shrink back nervously, anxiety radiating off the little bot in waves. " Oh Eject, I'm sorry, baby." Blaster's anger deflated at the sensation of zir youngest child's fear, and zie slumped down to sit against the opposite wall in defeat. " I'm just…this is…"

" I know, Carrier." Eject, having been born during the tail end of the war, was barely in his adult frame, and thus had no adult reservations about climbing into his carrier's lap and snuggling close. " It's not just about the walls."

Blaster let zir head tilt back to gaze forlornly at the ceiling, wrapping one arm around Eject and using zir free hand to pat the little bot on the head. " Have you seen her yet, Eject? Either of them?"

" No, Carrier—they're probably both down on the planet helping with the rescue effort." Eject began to trail patterns on Blaster's plating with tiny fingers. " The last time we spoke to big sister, she was really happy, though. Maybe things have gotten better."

" Oh Eject, I wish I could believe that. But that's how relationships like that work—they have crests and troughs, just like the airwaves. And you know how frequencies work—crests and troughs are always paired together. No, I'll never trust Chromedome farther than I can throw her, not after what happened. I _know _she's nothin' but bad news."

" I know, Carrier, she makes me nervous, too." The blue and white minibot murmured, his carrier's touch and warm hands soothing the tension out of his frame. " But Rewind's an adult—you can't protect her from everything."

" I know that, Eject, but I've got to _try. _You and she are all I have left, I—" Blaster's voice caught in zir throat as the unwelcome yet ever present pain began to sweep through zir endoskeleton. "—I can't bear to lose either of you."

Blaster—chief communications officer for both the Autobots and the _Lost Light_—had been one of those bots fortunate enough to "suffer" from a unique CNA defect that allowed for asexual reproduction. Common amongst born-neutrals, the mutation not only caused zir spark to cycle, peak, and crest faster and more potently than other mechs and femmes, but also produced spikes of CNA variation with each overload of energy. Thus, zie was able—through self-stimulation, proper medication, and/or pure accident—to produce and gestate zir own newsparks without a creator to donate spark energy. Zie remembered that zir parents had been mortified that their baby had been stricken with such an "uncouth" and "improper" condition, and Blaster's most prominent memories of zir childhood consisted of the painful limiter strapped onto zir spark since zir second frame and constant lectures from zir noble-class parents about avoiding "immoral" and "compromising" self-servicing and interfacing.

Blaster had hated zir childhood home and zir parents—zie resented living in the Towers where the noble bots attempted to smother the life, light, and personality out of each other on an ornly basis, and absolutely despised living with parents who saw zir condition as a "curse" instead of the blessing zie'd always believed it was, and cared more about keeping their creation as a status symbol instead of a happy and healthy bot. Blaster zirself had wanted to have children since entering zir third frame, but knew that zie wanted zir bitlets to grow up as far away from the Towers and its poisonous ambiance as possible, so zie secretly applied for and received a position as a radio DJ in Iacon's Golden District, clandestinely bought an apartment a few sectors away from zir job, and secretly removed zir spark limiter as soon as zie entered zir final frame. An orn after zie graduated from zir omega academy, Blaster proudly announced to zir parents that zie was with spark, and zie had already anticipated zir exile from high society and made arrangements, so zie would show zirself out.

The memories of zir parent's chagrined shrieks of disownment still made zir smile thousands of years later.

Rewind had been zir first baby. Blaster remembered holding the tiny little bot in zir arms for the first time (one side effect of such asexual reproduction was that the bots born would be microbots/minibots) and realizing how misguided zir parents were to think that any process that could produce such a perfect, wonderful little femme could be "disgusting" or "immoral". Rewind had made any suffering zie had endured at zir parents' hands fade away, and for a few hundred years zie raised the little femme on zir own while rising through the ranks in the Cybertronian radio circuit. Eventually, Rewind (always an introverted little thing who preferred her carrier's company to that of her peers) began to pine for siblings to play with, and Blaster zirself was ready for more children, so zie removed the much less painful limiter and gave birth to twins—Steeljaw and Ramhorn. Rewind had been delighted to have two little brothers to roughhouse with, and for the next century or so the small family lived in peace. Blaster soon became known as the top radio DJ in all of Cybertron, and eventually high command had come knocking for zir skills in communications, so Blaster soon became known as one of the best covert military communications officers around. Zir children thrived and played and laughed together, and Blaster allowed zirself to soak in the happiness and contentment zie had so longed for throughout zir miserable younglinghood.

Then the war came knocking.

Rewind had just entered her adult frame and graduated from her omega academy with top marks (with a specialty in archiving), and had been hired by the famous author and anti-disposal activist Dominus Ambus as a personal data receptacle. Despite Blaster's reservations about the mech and his motives, Rewind could not be dissuaded, so off they went to Luna-1. Blaster stayed behind with Steeljaw and Ramhorn and didn't hear from Rewind for groons. However, Blaster had never been more relieved that zir eldest wasn't at home when the bombings of Iacon occurred. On the first orn of bombing, zie had been in Optimus Prime's war room being sworn in as chief communications officer when Ironhide had run in, informing all assembled that the quarter in which zie lived had been demolished.

They had pulled Steeljaw and Ramhorn's bodies from the rubble two orns later.

Eject had been born during the last century of the war. Blaster's regulator had malfunctioned without zir knowing, and zie was unaware zie was carrying until a few orns before zie gave birth. Blaster had been a mess—how was zie going to raise a child in the war? Was this child going to die like Steeljaw and Ramhorn? The red bot had actually suffered a complete nervous breakdown on the day Eject was born, right on the medical berth—zie had screamed and screamed and screamed and clawed at zir chassis, begging Primus for it not to be true, to take the child away before it died like the others, to not let this be happening again.

Ratchet ended up having to sedate zir, and when zie woke up and saw Eject sleeping next to zir on a neighboring berth, zie started crying again out of sheer self hatred, because zie had forgotten how much zie loved having children and how much zie loved each and every one of zir babies, no matter how inconvenient their timing. A few cycles before zie had been begging for him not to be born, but now zie was just so relieved that he was in her life.

Fortunately, Blaster managed to shelter and protect Eject long enough for him to enter his adult form and for the war to finally end, and when they both had heard that Rewind and _Chromedome _had decided to embark upon Rodimus' grand journey, Blaster and Eject immediately packed up and applied for positions on the ship. After the…._incident_, Rewind had blocked her familial bonds with her little brother and carrier and severed the "cassette bond" out of frustration and anger, so she had no idea that the two were on board. She would know soon enough, though—Blaster wasn't about to lose another child in any way, shape, or form, and zie would even tolerate _Chromedome _(even after the incident) if it meant being able to see zir eldest again.

" Excuse me?"

Blaster was broken out of zir reverie at the quiet, accented voice. Setting Eject down peds-first on the floor, zie rose to zir own feet and turned to greet the small orange and white bot.

" Er, may I help you…?"

" It's Rung. I'm Ratchet's bondmate." The most unassuming bot ever scratched his helm and chuckled nervously. " I'm a psychiatrist by trade, but Ratchet thought I could be of some assistance to you."

Eject's opics narrowed, and he was probably frowning underneath his mask. " Er…no offence Mr. Ring—"

" It's Rung."

"—Mr. Rung, sorry, but why did the doc bot think you could help? It's not like you can make the wires feel better about their lives and inspire them into working again."

" _Eject!" _Blaster exclaimed in mortification. " I'm so, so sorry about him, he's still young and a little…_uncouth, _if you get my drift."

Blaster had to admist zie was relieved when zie saw that Rung was laughing at Eject's joke. " No harm done, Blaster." The psychiatrist quieted after a klik and padded over to the exposed wall wiring. " No, normally I wouldn't be of any use in this situation, but I heard you were in need of some communications repair equipment?"

" Yeah. Whatever that blast did completely tangled the wires to hell and popped them all out of place." Blaster groaned as zie looked once again to the chaotic mess that was the communications array. " If I had a communications repair module, I'd be able to have this baby fixed in an orn, but our great illustrious Prime apparently didn't think of a possible communications malfunction, so Eject and I are looking at least a couple weeks of repairs."

"…please forgive my slow transformation. It's been quite a while since I've had to use my alternate mode."

" Whaaa—"

Before Blaster could ask what the slag he was doing, Rung began to fold and compact and shift in on himself, and a klik later (he wasn't lying when he said he hadn't transformed in awhile—both Blaster and Eject winced whenever they heard the pop of a stiff joint or a snag of a cable) emerged in the form of a small, rounded vehicle with a long claw arm.

Blaster's entire mood did a three-sixty and the grin on zir face nearly cracked zir lip plates.

" You're kidding me! Your alt mode is a communications repair vehicle?!"

The vehicle rocked abashedly on its wheels. " Well, yes. My thin and small body made most alt modes out of the question, and I always wanted to transform into something that could be of use to someone, so I chose a communications repair vehicle."

" But…you're a psychiatrist." Eject punched the side of his helm a few times in confusion. " That doesn't even make sense."

" Well, I never said I wanted my alt mode to be of any particular use to _me._"

Blaster walked over to Rung and kneeled down in front of him. " It's Rung, right?"

" Yes. Thank you for remembering it the first time."

" Well, Rung, I hereby declare you my new best friend. Jazz used to have that title, but, well, he's not in front of me in the middle of who the pit knows where in space with the very altmode I needed to see."

"…um, thank you?" Rung's disembodied voice sounded very perplexed.

" No, thank _you. _Let's get to work." Blaster strode back over to the wall with a spring in zir step, with Rung rolling slowly behind zir. " Eject, grab all the calipers you can—we're back in business!"

* * *

Cyclonus and Tailgate had been walking along the planet for near a cycle by themselves when Swerve finally caught up to them. The bomb disposal bot had been warned by Ratchet to not transform until he adjusted to his new legs, so Cyclonus had offered to carry the little bot on his back so he could keep up with his much larger strides, to which Tailgate readily agreed. Tailgate had been gently inquiring about the events he had missed in his six million year stasis (deciding to avoid his more pertinent questions until they were in private back on the ship) when a very loud voice called out behind them.

" Hey, Cyclonus! And…Tailgate, is it?!"

Tailgate yelped, arms clenching around Cyclonus' neck in shock. The purple bot was also startled, wrapping his own arms tighter around Tailgate's legs, and turned around to glare at the red and white minicar blazing towards them.

" Oh, if it isn't Swerve." The former lieutenant to Zeta Prime grumbled. " Fantastic."

" Swerve?" Tailgate made a move to climb down from Cyclonus' back to avoid embarrassing him in front of his "friends", but the stoic warrior held fast to his long lost companion. " Who's he?"

" Let me put it this way—his nickname in the academy was "shut the hell up"."

"…Oh. Do you want me to get down?"

"Hmm…no need. He's already seen us, after all."

" Ah, okay then." Tailgate's spark fluttered in his chest (as it always did at receiving Cyclonus' kindness) and watched as the car came to a screeching halt directly in front of them, spraying gravel and dust everywhere as it transformed into a stout, boxy, red and white minibot. " Cyclonus says your name is…Swerve. It's nice to meet you."

" Hey, likewise buddy!" Swerve clapped his hands and surveyed the two bots. " Uh…why are you riding on his back? Legs still bothering you?"

" No, I just can't transform right now, and this way's faster." Deciding he should drop down to meet his guest, Tailgate tapped Cyclonus on the helm, and the ancient warrior accordingly sighed and knelt on the ground. " How did you know about my legs? And how did you know my name?" Tailgate bounced off of his partner and strode towards the other minibot, who proceeded to immediately grab his hand try to shake it off.

" Let's just say that word travels fast in close quarters!" Swerve finally let go of Tailgate's hand and put his own hands on his hips. " Plus, everyone kind of ran to Ratchet's office to figure out what was going on when they heard you screaming."

" Heh heh." Tailgate chuckled nervously as he tried to shake energon circulation back into his hand. " I was that loud?"

" Tailgate, even bots who have been _gut shot _don't scream that loud. I was floored that you didn't burst your intake vent." Swerve apparently found this hilarious and started laughing, and Tailgate couldn't help but laugh as well, unable to help liking the boisterous, lively bot in front of him. Cyclonus, though, was obviously not so fond of the other minibot, since he had wandered off to pretend to investigate a nearby rock formation. " Anyways, I'm Swerve, full time loud mouth and part time metallurgist."

" A "metallurgist"? Back in my day we called you guys "skin specialists"."

" Yeah, I'm glad they don't anymore, because metallurgist just sounds so much more awesome than skin specialist." Swerve proceeded to fling a friendly arm around Tailgate, who squawked and flailed his arms. " You're pretty high strung, you know that?"

" You would be too if you were in a coma for six million years." Tailgate glanced over at Cyclonus and smiled under his mask. " If it hadn't been for Cyclonus, I probably would have had a panic attack."

" Cyclonus…? Oh yeah, that's right, he's from your time period too! Are—were—are you guys friends?"

"…You could say that." The unseen smile only got wider.

A quiet cry of surprise brought Swerve and Tailgate's full attention back to Cyclonus, who was gazing intently at the sky. " Cyclonus?" Tailgate gently pushed Swerve's arm away and trotted over to his companion, his new red and white friend close behind. " What's wrong? Did you hurt yourself?"

" A shuttle just entered the atmosphere." Cyclonus rumbled, finger pointing at something in the sky. Tailgate followed the finger and, sure enough, saw an orange-yellow, strangely shaped space cruiser jetting away from the wispy remains of a quantum jump exit.

" What in the world?" The bomb disposal bot rubbed his visor to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing, and yes, the shuttle was still cutting through the green-tinted twilight sky, and not only that, but it looked as if it was _transforming. _" This might be bad."

" Agreed." Swerve frantically looked around for others before spotting another strange object in the distance. " Look, there's Rewind giving her transformation cog a try! Let's regroup and figure out what to do next!"

" Oh!" Tailgate looked a little lower on the horizon and saw a long, flat, black rectangle descend from the sky into the arms of a lanky, orange bot. " Is that…a giant memory stick?"

" Yes, that would be Rewind, and it looks like Chromedome is with her. I tell you, they're closer than Rack 'n' Ruin, and those two are pretty damn close. Come on, let's find them and figure out what the hell is going on!"

Without another word, Swerve transformed and sped off in the direction of the distant pair. Tailgate allowed himself to be hefted on Cyclonus' shoulders once again, and the pair took off after their obnoxious "friend" on foot.

When Cyclonus and Tailgate eventually caught up with Swerve, they found him talking to Rewind and Chromedome, the three gazing up into the sky and talking in hurried, panicky voices. Behind them, two stocky femmes, one short and green and the other slightly taller and yellow (_Hoist and Grapple, a bonded pair of engineers, _Cyclonus had explained as they approached) were shaking water off of their cables as they strode from the nearby lake over to the slapdash group. Behind them, two charred, grey, flattened bodies of unidentifiable transformations were resting forlornly on the beach.

" Oh, you must be Tailgate!" Rewind waved at the smaller bot as he leapt from Cyclonus' shoulders and sprinted towards Swerve, the larger purple bot close behind. " It's a pleasure to meet you! I'm Rewind, an archivist by trade, and this is my companion Chromedome, and those two are—"

" Hoist and Grapple, I know, Cyclonus explained it to me!" Tailgate cut in, glancing up in the sky and shrieking in horror. " I'm Tailgate, and I know I'm sounding really rude right now, but _that shuttle is going to crash into us!"_

The six other bots looked up and, indeed, saw that still-transforming shuttle was now barreling right towards them, and did not appear to be in any way interested in stopping or pulling up.

" _To the lake, now!" _Grapple shrieked, grabbing Hoist by the arm and ushering them both towards the dead bodies. Chromedome picked up Rewind and promptly did the same, and Cyclonus found himself hauling both Tailgate and Swerve under his arms as he made a break for the lakeshore.

The assembled group reached the lake and were just able to see what looked like a Cybertronian jump from the shuttle just astroseconds before the ship slammed into the ground at high velocity, exploding in a fireball worthy of the record books. The six Cybertronians stumbled backwards into the water and threw their arms in front of their faces as a wall of heat and pressure ploughed into them for at least a kilk. Finally the bubble of turgid ozone finally "popped", leaving the group in a strange pocket of cool dampness, and the seven uncovered their optics to see an enormous fire blazing just a kilometer or so in front of them, billows of black smoke obscuring whatever was in the inferno from view.

" Is everyone present and accounted for?" Cyclonus—who had bent over Tailgate to shield him from the worst of the explosion—finally stood up, the minibot emerging with bleary eyes from between his legs. Hoist and Grapple muttered out their affirmations while hauling a waterlogged Swerve back onto his feet, and Rewind uncurled herself from Chromedome's arms, the mnemnosurgeon having done the exact same maneuver Cyclonus had performed to protect her lover.

" First Tailgate's journey from the center of the planet. Then the implosion of a quantum generator. _Now _a shuttle crash." Rewind sounded more bemused than anything. " What _is_ it with us and _explosions_ today?"

A smooth, bewildered voice suddenly came from their right. " Uh, I wouldn't mind finding the answer to that question myself."

The group of seven spun around to see a limber Praxian form rising to its feet. The blue bot with red highlights—obviously the one that managed to escape the shuttle just astroseconds before its flaming demise—groaned, popped their shoulders, shrugged vainly against the massive inhibitor claw latched onto their back, and peered mistily at the assembled Cybertronians.

Swerve was the first to find his voice (which was no surprise to all assembled). " _Skids! _Is that you?! We thought you were dead! What were you doing on that ship?!"

The neutral's eyes widened. " Oh, so _that's _my name! I was thinking it was Scum for a moment there. And…uh, to answer your questions in order, yes, I guess that is me, I have no clue if I was dead or not, and….no, I honestly have no idea. I'm just glad I got off, because I think that ship was alive and going to kill me—"

" Nineteen eighty four."

Both Skids and the group of seven spun to face the fireball—the obvious origin of the guttural, static-pocked growl that squirmed into their audios—and were horrified to witness three very, _very _large frames slowly rising from the sweltering miasma.

" See what I mean?" Skids remarked. " All three of them must have combined to form the ship I was riding in."

" Nineteen eighty four."

" Skids, what _are _those things?!" Hoist backed farther into the water as the three monsters that once composed a space cruiser continued their transformation sequences. Huge legs folded out from tremendous torsos, the three bots towering over the rest of the group, their massive arms slid into place and grabbed the biggest swords any assembled had ever seen, and their oval heads popped out between jutting shoulder bars with prominent mandibles and curved lines for optics, all three pairs of which were now fixated on the bewildered gaggle of eight.

" I have no clue! I just woke up with no memory in a ship and then it tried to eat me!"

" What are they even talking about?!" Grapple's cultured voice was all a swivet. What's nineteen eighty four?! And why are they coming closer?!"

" _**I told you I don't fragging know! I barely even remember my fragging name!"**_

" Nineteen eighty four!"

" I hate to inform you all of this…" Cyclonus reached into subspace, withdrew his own sword, and took an aggressive stance next to Tailgate, who had assumed a fighter's pose with curled fists and steady peds. "…but I think those three are now after more than just Skids. Prepare for combat!"

" _**Nineteen eighty four!"**_

* * *

To be continued…


End file.
